The Other Side
by staceycj
Summary: Post 6X22 The boys are at Singer Salvage, recuperating, when a man claiming to be John Winchester's father comes calling.
1. Chapter 1

"Hey Sam I'm back!" Dean shouted as he slammed Bobby's front door, stuffed his keys into his jacket pocket, and headed into the kitchen where Sam was sitting studying something on his Ipad. Dean dropped the books onto the table next to him. "Dude, you are the only person in the free world who owns an Ipad and still wants me to go to the library to get you books."

"Well I wouldn't have to send you to the library if I wasn't on house arrest." Sam said when he looked up at Dean.

"Not my fault the glue in your brain hasn't dried yet either." Sam gave Dean the patented "bitch face" and Dean just laughed, shrugged out of his coat, and took a glass out of the cabinet. "You want something to drink?" he asked as he turned on the tap.

"Nah. Thanks."

"How much have you eaten?"

"Dean.." Sam said warningly.

"Have you eaten more than the two eggs that you had for breakfast?" Sam closed his eyes, clenched his hands, and tried desperately to calm his already delicate temper.

"Dean. Leave it." Dean took a drink from the glass and inwardly sighed. This is how Sam had been since he had put himself back together, and Cass had disappeared to parts unknown to smite angels that hadn't supported him on his quest to destroy himself and Raphael. Sam had been irritable one minute, happy the next, sad just as quick, and then Sam'd just be gone, and Dean would be left looking at a body with nothing behind his eyes. It was hard on him, truth be told, it was hard on all of them. But Sam had been through a lot, and he needed their support, no matter the mood.

"Okay. But, even if you don't eat, please at least drink as much water as you can stomach. You are still really pale, and between the lack of food and the lack of sleep…I.." Dean stopped, but Sam understood exactly what his brother was staying. He had felt the same way when Dean had returned from hell. Dean had drank too much, not eaten enough, not slept enough. Dean didn't want Sam anymore hurt than he already was and Sam understood that, he had been on the other side of the hell fence before and it was a scary place.

Sam licked his lips and nodded. He turned to his brother. "Okay. I promise." Sam gave him the barest hint of a smile. "It's not like you're looking much better." Sam countered.

"Hey! I look damn good." Truth be told, Dean hadn't slept much more in the last couple of weeks than Sam had. Every single time Sam twitched in his sleep, Dean was awake and at his side ready to wake him before the hell dreams could take full swing. And Sam was always glad that Dean was there at his side to wake him. Hell dreams were worse than any vision, dream, or nightmare he had ever had before—and Sam had had some duzies in his lifetime.

Sam rolled his eyes, "Whatever dude. You working the yard today?"

"Yeah, the old man wants me out there, says that more ladies come to the yard when I'm here."

"Whatever dude. Bobby would never say something that stupid."

"He did too."

"Please Dean." Sam said. His eyes suddenly lost the spark of humor and his face went slack, and his eyes weren't looking at Dean, they were looking through him. Dean put his water glass down and went to his brother, took the chair next to him, reached under Sam's long hair and put a hand on the back of Sam's neck, creating contact that would ground his little brother to reality, or at least this reality.

"I'm here Sammy." Dean said softly. "You aren't in hell. You aren't with Grandpa. It's me and you in Bobby's kitchen. We're safe. No one is going to hurt you. I'm right here." Dean licked his own lips and wished that Sam's life hadn't become this. Hadn't become a series of space outs where Sam was lost and confused, reliving hell, reliving a year where he might as well have been in hell, and helpless to stop any of it. Sam swayed a little, and he swallowed, his eyes watered, and they finally moved and found Dean's eyes.

Sam wavered a little more, and licked his lips where moisture was collecting and trying to get enough momentum to stream down the side of his mouth. Sam blinked a couple of times and worked hard at communicating with his arm to move, and with great effort it did and Sam wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked at Dean instead of through him and asked thickly, "How long?"

"Just a couple of minutes Sam. You're okay." Sam nodded.

"Thanks." Dean took his hand away from Sam's skin and stood up, he'd learned that the best way to deal with the aftermath of Sammy's space outs was to continue the conversation they were having before the space out, keep things as normal as possible, it took away some of Sam's embarrassment, some of his fear, and Dean was all about keeping his little brother all in one piece.

"You ought to read in the yard while I work in the office today. Bobby and I rigged up a little place to keep you cool while we work."

"Dean, I really ought to help out around here."

"You do research for Bobby, and give him time to actually work in the yard, get his business back together. The apocalypse may not have destroyed the world, but it did do a number to Singer Salvage. Trust me, you are helping." Dean said as he downed the glass of water while never taking his eyes off of his little brother.

Sam ran a hand through his hair and looked down at the books in front of him. "No. No. I'm going to stay in here. I need to keep an eye on the phones for him. And you're right. There is lots of research to do. Holbrook needs info on this thing, he needs to give me more than simply..." Sam tapped his Ipad a couple of times and pulled up the notes he had taken when he spoke to Holbrook, "more than claws, big, and gnarly." Sam shook his head a little, partly to clear the remaining cobwebs that were a result from his space out, and partly because he was confused. "I wonder if he means gnarly in the vernacular or in the literal." Dean chuckled.

"I don't know dude. That's something you have to figure out."

"I guess I'm going to have to call him back and get more information."

"Enjoy that…Holbrook isn't exactly fun to talk to."

"Oh. You don't talk to Holbrook, he holds you hostage on the phone for an hour."

"True." Dean grabbed Sam's shoulder in an affectionate gesture. "You sure you are okay enough for me to leave you?"

"You'll be right outside." Sam said reassuring his brother and himself. Sam didn't want his brother out of his sight any more than Dean wanted Sam to be out of his sight. But he had to do this, he had to learn to live autonomously again. Before he fell into the pit he and Dean were learning how to be adults, together, and independent, and since he put everything back together again, he had been dependent on Dean, and Dean didn't deserve that and Sam didn't deserve that either. Both knew that Sam had to learn to function in his new reality, but while Dean simply didn't like watching his brother struggle, Sam most certainly didn't like being the one who struggled.

"You're sure?"

Sam nodded. "Positive. If I need you, you'll have your cell on you."

"Right." Dean sighed and clapped his brother on the shoulder. "I'll be in to check on you in a little bit."

"Okay." Sam took a deep fortifying breath, picked up Bobby's cordless phone and dialed. At least if he spaced out on Holbrook, odds were good the talkative hunter would never know.

SNSNSNSNSN

"Marcus, Anderson Autos called, they need a carburetor from the 1990 Toyota Corolla. He needs it by 3."

"Okay Boss." The young man said and started for the far end of the lot. Bobby looked down at the checklist he had on the clipboard. So many things to do to get the business back on its feet, and truth be told he was glad Sam and Dean were hanging out here for a while, the extra help the boys gave him, for nothing more than room and board was much needed and welcome.

"How's it going Bobby?" Dean asked as he walked up behind the elder hunter.

"Things would be on track if my slow as hell employees would get their asses in gear." Dean smiled.

"Where do you want me?"

"I got a muscle car in the garage that needs fixed, and keep an eye on the phones while you are in there."

"Okay." Dean turned to head back to the garage when Bobby stopped him.

"How's Sam?"

"Spaced out when I got back from the library."

"How long?"

"Just a few minutes this time."

"That's better than yesterday."

"True."

"Is he going to sit with you while you work?"

"No. He decided to stay in the house and do research for Holbrook."

"Oh God. I wish that kid would lose my number."

Dean chuckled. "I think Sam feels that way right about now too. He had to call him back and get a definition of gnarly."

Bobby sighed. "Knowing Holbrook he probably think it means something like 'tall'." Dean smiled.

"I'll be in the garage."

"Kay."

Dean was almost to the garage when a car drove up to the entrance of the salvage yard. Bobby didn't recognize the Ford Taurus that came to a halt in front of Bobby. The door to the blue car opened and a tall man emerged. He looked to be around 75, surprisingly tall and straight; most men his age were hunched over even if only a little bit. He slowly made his way to Bobby, and asked, "Robert Singer?"

"Yes. What can I help you with sir?"

"I'm looking for John Winchester." Bobby's eyes narrowed slightly. Every hunter had heard when John died. John, despite his not always stellar parenting skills, was one of the best hunters, and when the demon got him, every hunter quaked just a little in their boots. If John could die, then they were all at risk.

"Who are you?" Bobby asked, deciding to play this through.

"I'm his father. Andrew Winchester. I'm looking for my son." Bobby swallowed.


	2. Chapter 2

Bobby adjusted the ball cap on his head and looked the man in the eye. "John never talked about no father."

"My son and I weren't exactly on what you would call the best of terms after that wife o'his died." The elderly man stood tall and put his hands on his hips squaring off with Bobby. The stare he fixed Bobby was one John had fixed him years ago, the one that said 'give me what I want or get the hell out of the way while I get it for myself'. And that was never a stare to mess with.

"How did you find me?"

"A man out in Montana said that if anyone would know where to find my son, you would be the man."

"I ain't in the business of giving out information."

"Appreciate that. You know where my kid is or not?" Bobby stood there for a second and contemplated just out and out telling the man that his kid was dead, sending the man away, and never telling him that his grandsons were here. Sam and Dean had had so many issues with the last man who had come to town owning the biological term of grandfather that Bobby didn't know how well they would react to another. But Bobby knew how much family meant to them, Dean most of all, and he couldn't make himself turn the man away, no matter how beneficial it might be in the long run…Bobby knew that in the short term, that all it would earn Bobby was an angry Dean Winchester…and that was like pissing off a hornet's nest.

"Come this way." Bobby finally said and led Andrew Winchester to the garage in which Dean was working. It wasn't Bobby's place to say or not say anything. He'd leave that to Dean.

SNSNSNSNSN

"Yes, Mr. Thompson, this is Dean from Singer Salvage….yes…I'm the one working on your 1970 Plymouth GTX, and I wanted to check with you before I spent money on a part…." Dean paused and the side door to the garage opened and Dean turned, saw Bobby, with what he figured was a customer, and turned back to the pad of paper he was holding. "Yeah…it will be well over 300 dollars. I just wanted to check with you, because it will go over the quoted price Mr. Singer gave you. Okay… Okay…will do…you're welcome. Good Bye." Dean turned off the phone and put it back on the receiver and began hunting up the number to the salvage yard in Nebraska who had the part he needed.

"Dean?" Bobby said trying to keep his voice even.

"Mr. Thompson said it was good. He knows it's over the estimate you gave him."

"That's good son, but I want you to meet someone." Dean turned around, green eyes confused, and looked up at the man behind Bobby, he nodded to him and said "sir" and gave Bobby his full attention.

"This is Andrew Winchester." Dean looked up at the man and then back at Bobby.

"You're Dean?" the older man said softly.

"Yes, sir, I am. What does it matter to you?"

"I haven't seen you since you were three years old."

"Good for you?" Dean said confusedly. "Who is this guy?" Dean asked Bobby.

"He is looking for your daddy."

"What do you want with my father?" Dean asked. Too many bad guys had taken the form of family in the last couple of years and Dean was going to hold his cards close to his chest, he wanted to know more about this guy before he confirmed or denied anything about John Winchester.

"He's my son."

"John's father is dead."

"I'm right here." Dean distrusted the hopeful look in the older man's eyes. John's father was dead that's what he had been told all of his life. And if this guy was back from the dead, Dean needed a reason, and he wasn't going to trust this guy on the blind faith of family bloodlines. Dean had learned his lesson.

"Let me see your driver's license." Bobby tried to hide his surprise. Out of all of Dean's possible reactions, asking for a form of photo ID had not been on Bobby's short list of possible Dean reactions-hitting, yelling, threatening, now those had been on the list.

The older man didn't hesitate to pull out his wallet and provide Dean with photo ID. Dean held it up under the light, checked the name, checked everything, he'd forged enough of these to know a real from a fake. When he had completed his examination he handed it back to Andrew.

"What do you want?"

"I want to see my son."

"You haven't seen him in, what? 28 years? And you are just now hunting him down. Give me a break." Dean said and turned away from the man and continued to look for the number for the salvage yard in Nebraska that had the part he needed.

"What? That's it? You check my ID, and you what? Decide you aren't going to tell me where my son is?" Andrew was getting angry, he'd been looking for his son for 20 years, and now he was so close, hell he was staring at his grandson, and this little punk wasn't going to tell him where John was? All Andrew saw was red.

"You don't deserve to know anything."

"Dean Isaac Winchester." He said angrily. Dean spun around, furious at the use of his full name by a man whom he had never known, never met, and who had never cared enough to do anything to save Sam or himself from a childhood of hunting. Dean took one stride and planted himself right in front of Andrew, and there were demons that had cowered at the stare that Dean was fixing Andrew.

"Do not address me as if you know me. Do not waltz in here pretending to know anything about my family or me. You've not been around for the last 28 years, you can stay gone."

"And who dictates that you are the keeper of the family?" Andrew shot back, un-flapped by Dean's threat.

"Your son did. When he put my brother in my arms and said to watch out for him. I became the keeper of my family, and you best better remember that. You found the way in, you can find the way out." Dean growled. Dean's anger was so palpable that Bobby had to resist the urge to take a step back.

Andrew seemed to consider this information for a moment and then he took a small step back, giving some respect to Dean's authority. "You can growl at me all you want boy. I'm even going to leave. But I'll be back every single day until you tell me where my son is." With that, Andrew took his leave of Dean and Bobby, the door slamming behind him.

Dean spun around and started throwing papers all around the area he had laid claim to earlier in their stay as "his office".

"Dean?" Bobby began gently.

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Dean…"

Dean stopped his frantic searching, pressed his palms against the desk in front of him, head hanging down, "Not now, okay, Bobby. Please." He asked gently. "Just let me work."

"Okay. Okay." Bobby said. "I'll be in the yard if you need me."

"Okay. Thanks."

"Sure." The door shut in Bobby's wake and Dean sat down in the rolly chair that was behind him and put his head in his hands. Another grandparent. Another agenda. And this time, his brother wasn't full speed, and he couldn't have someone else preying on what was left of his family.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Dean worked in the yard for an hour or so, and then headed inside, to check on Sam. Sam was sitting on the phone, with his head on the table, tapping his forehead gently against the countertop.

"Yeah…really….three demons? Wow…I had no idea that demons didn't like mustard…." Dean chuckled a little. Sam was still on the phone with Holbrook, and from the sounds of it he had been stuck for quite some time.

Dean turned on the faucet and the sound startled Sam, and he turned around, Dean gave him an amused smile as he washed his hands, Sam gave him the sign for 'kill me now.' And Dean chuckled. He dried his hands on a towel and took the receiver out of Sam's hand.

"Hey Holbrook…Yeah…Dean Winchester…Sam has to go now. Yeah. He'll call you back when he knows something. In the meantime, why don't you go figure out if you can pack mustard into bullets that might help the demon thing. Kay. Bye." Dean pressed 'off' and turned to his little brother.

"You've been on the phone with him this whole time?"

"Oh God. Yes. He wouldn't let me go."

"You're too nice." Dean said with a smile, because he could remember a time when he longed for his little brother to be 'too nice' again.

"Yeah well whatever. You get much done?" he asked as he began sorting through the paper that was on the table in front of him.

"Yeah." Dean went to the refrigerator, grabbed a beer and leaned against the countertop by the sink. "Andrew Winchester came looking for Dad." Dean said and took a long drink.

"Who?"

"Dad's dad."

"I thought he was dead."

"Me too."

"Why would he be here?"

"Says he's looking for Dad."

"Demon?"

"Didn't test."

"Brought back from the dead?"

"No. His driver's license is accurate and current. It's been worn in a way that only happens when it's been in a wallet a while. So, guy is at least not been dead and resurrected."

"What is up with all of these long lost relatives coming out of the woodwork? It ain't like we have money or anything."

"True."

"What do you think he wants?"

"I don't know. I told him to go away. I don't care what he wants, we don't need him in our lives."

"Dean…"

"Don't you dare give me the 'he's family' speech."

"But he is."

"I've had my fill of extended family."

"But this is from Dad's side. The non-hunting side."

"I don't know Sammy. I just told him to leave."

Sam's brows knitted in confusion. "I wish you would have gotten me first."

"No one is getting to you until I know they are 100% safe. I'm not letting anyone hurt you ever again."

"Dean, I'm okay."

"No you're not. You space out, you scream in your sleep, you're pale, you're sad, you're tired, you aren't okay. And that's because I trusted someone I shouldn't have. I let my guard down, trusted, and look at what he did to you."

"I trusted Cass too…I thought he was our friend."

"Well obviously power trumps friendship, and I don't know what this guy's agenda is but it can't be innocent, and I'm not going to let him near you until I know for sure what he wants from us."

"Dean.." Sam tried to reason.

"No. Enough. End of story. I'm the eldest and I know what's best!"

"I thought we agreed we were equal in this."

"We are when it comes to everything else. But I'm the head of the family now…"

"Dean, stop it." Sam shook his head and stood. "Dude, you have to ease up. What if this guy is good? What if he really is Dad's dad? What if he doesn't know his boy is dead? We don't know."

"You're right. We don't. And I don't want to know." Dean put the beer on the counter and turned towards the door. "Call me if you need me. I have my cell." Sam sighed and shook his head.


	3. Chapter 3

The rule seemed to be that if Sam had a good day, relatively few space outs that lasted for a short amount of time, then the night would be filled with dreams of the cage, of Lucifer, of tortures unimaginable to anyone else, including Dean who had seen many horrors and performed many horrors while in hell, and those dreams would simply tear Sam apart. And that rule held true that night.

Bobby was startled awake by a short, but very loud scream, and thudding footsteps. Bobby got out of bed, threw on his hat and hurried to the other end of the hallway. Dean was kneeling by Sam's bed, one hand on his brother's chest and the other on the back of Sam's sweat soaked neck.

"What do you need?" Bobby asked without preamble.

"A luke warm shower should help." Dean said automatically and Bobby hurried to perform the task. "It's okay Sammy. I'm right here. I'm not hurt, Bobby's not hurt, you're not hurt. We're sitting in our room, it's two in the morning, and Bobby is running a shower for you. You aren't in Hell, you aren't trapped with Lucifer and Michael. You are on Earth, you have your soul, and you are in bed at Bobby's house. Just take a deep breath." Sam did as instructed. "That's it little brother, that's it." Dean rubbed slow gentle circles on Sam's chest and continued to repeat the information calmly and soothingly, until finally, Sam audibly swallowed, and blinked hard, tears streaming from his eyes.

A shaking hand went to Sam's face and he wiped away the tears with the back of it. He took a deep breath and blinked again and looked down into his brother's face. "I'm good." He coughed. Dean took his hand from the back of Sam's neck and reached for the glass of water he kept by Sam's bedside and helped his little brother drink from the cup.

"Come on. You need a shower. You're soaked in sweat." Sam nodded and Bobby was standing in the door way looking deceptively calm.

"What do you need me to do Dean?"

"Help me help him up?" Dean finally said, and Bobby came to Sam's other side and they helped the larger man into the bathroom, Bobby left while Dean helped Sam undress, and get into the shower, but the moment the curtain was pulled Bobby was in the bathroom, waiting to help Dean with his brother if needed. Dean gave Bobby a tight lipped smile of gratitude. Bobby returned the gesture with a nod.

SNSNSNSNSN

"I think you should go with me to the yard today Sammy." Dean suggested as he put an egg and some bacon on Sam's plate.

Sam looked up at him with hazy tired eyes. "I don't know Dean."

"You're going to the yard with Dean." Bobby said as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

"But the phones." Sam said lamely.

"I'll handle the phones if they need handled. I want you outside where your brother can keep an eye on you."

"I'm really okay guys." Sam tried. Bobby stopped his cup halfway to his mouth and shared a glance with Dean.

"Sam. No arguing. You aren't in good form today. You didn't sleep much last night."

"Neither did either of you." Sam countered feeling guilty that neither Dean nor Bobby had been able to receive the proper rest because of him.

"We may not have slept much, but we still aren't reeling from dreams." Dean countered and dug into his bowl of cereal. "Now eat Sam. Please. You need your strength." Sam knew when he wasn't going to win a battle, and he sighed, put his napkin in his lap, and stared down at the food on his plate. He wasn't hungry, he hadn't been hungry for days, and the thought of food that was slimy or smelled like charred flesh didn't appeal to him. But he was going to eat it, he was going to down the food like a pro because Bobby and Dean had asked him to, and he was just about to cut a small piece of the egg and eat it when his plate was taken and replaced with a bowl of cereal…the bowl of cereal that Dean had just a moment ago taken a bite from.

"Sorry. I forgot what it was like." Was all Dean said and began eating the eggs and bacon. Sam smiled. Sometimes he forgot Dean had gone to hell because Dean had seemingly dealt with the aftermath so much better than he was.

SNSNSNSNSN

Dean had set Sam up at the desk in the garage while he spent his time underneath he hood of Mr. Thompson's 1970 Plymouth. They talked while Dean worked, mostly so Dean could hear Sam's voice and detect if he was spacing out or not, and several times through the morning, Dean had to go to his brother, place a grounding hand on the back of Sam's neck and talk to him, wipe the spittle from his lips, and reassure him that he was fine, that he was where he belonged and no one was ever going to hurt him again.

And it was right after one of Sam's space outs when Andrew Winchester decided to show up. Dean heard the door open, and looked behind him and saw Andrew standing in the doorway. Dean sighed and hung his head and asked, "What do you want?"

"I told you yesterday. I'm looking for my son."

Sam blinked slowly a couple of times and was finally able to focus on the tall man in the doorway. He looked back at his brother and said "Dean." That one word conveyed all he wanted to say, and Dean understood it without question. Dean stood and turned around.

"You want to know where your son is?" Dean asked.

"Do I stutter or something boy?"

Dean gritted his teeth. He was about to fire off a smart ass retort when Sam's tired and strained voice answered, "He's dead."

"What did you say?" Andrew asked flabbergasted.

"My brother didn't stutter." Dean retorted.

"Be nice." Sam said to Dean quietly.

"My boy is dead?"

"Been gone for almost 7 years." Sam supplied.

"Oh God." The older man sat down heavily in the chair that was sitting beside the door. He ran a hand down his weathered face and with a voice heavy with emotion he said "A man isn't supposed to outlive his children." He turned an angry eye at Dean and asked, "Why didn't…?"

"We didn't know you existed." Sam said softly trying to stand up, and Dean protectively holding his hands out to catch him in case the vertigo Sam experienced after a space out made it difficult to walk.

"You got what you wanted," Dean said, his chin angled up in defiance. "You can leave now."

"How did he die?" That question always made Dean's blood boil from the guilt and pain of knowing his father died to save him. And since the whole apocalypse, and knowing he was the who started it because he hadn't been strong enough, thinking about his father's death made his blood boil harder and faster, because now guilt was amplified by Dean's feelings of unworthiness. "What part of you can leave didn't you understand old man. Our Dad is dead! Been dead for years. It doesn't matter how he died. He's gone. You can leave now."

"Dean." Sam tried to calm his older brother.

"No. He got what he wanted. He wanted to know where Dad was. We told him. He can be on his merry way. We don't need him around." Bobby entered from the back of the garage and saw the scene before him for what it truly was; Dean angry and dangerous, Sam caring and compassionate, and Andrew Winchester sad and visibly hurt.

"You told him?" Bobby asked coming to stand next to Sam.

"Yeah. And he got what he wanted so he can leave now." Dean said, posture angry and threatening.

"Sir. You ought to go." Bobby said softly.

"These are my grandsons." 

"Grandsons who don't really want you here." Bobby said. "Let me walk you to your car." The old man got up, knowing when he had lost the battle, but like any good soldier he knew that losing the battle didn't mean you had to concede the war. He turned and looked at Dean.

"I'm coming back every day until I get answers." Sam put a hand on Dean's shoulder to keep him quiet and Bobby escorted the elderly man out of the garage.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Dean hadn't said a great deal since Andrew left. He came inside at dinner time and fixed the three of them tomato soup and grilled cheese. Sam sat down at the kitchen table while Dean fixed food.

"Well at least I now know where I get my height." Sam said off handedly as he flipped through the research pages he was assembling for Holbrook.

"What?"

"I always wondered where I got my height from."

"Dad was tall." Dean said as he flipped the sandwiches.

"But I was taller than Dad. And I was taller than Mom's dad too. Always kind of wondered if it had something to do with the demon blood."

Dean turned and gave his brother a disgusted look. "Oh come on Sam."

Sam smiled. "Aren't you curious about him?"

"No." Dean said quickly. "I'm tired of family that shows up out of nowhere. I have my family right here, you and Bobby. That's all I need. That's all I want."

"That's not true Dean. You've always wanted a big family."

"Don't Sam."

Sam sighed. "I'm not saying we need to let this guy in and just love him unconditionally like we've known him our whole lives. But I'm just saying that maybe when he comes back, that we stop and talk to him a little…not threaten, not yell, just talk, get to know him a little bit better. That's all I'm suggesting." Dean was silent and Sam sighed inwardly. At least silence was better than a definitive no, not a whole lot, but at least he wasn't yelling.


	4. Chapter 4

A routine had been established while at Bobby's since "the day Cass went nuts with power". The boys got up together, Sam took a shower first, Dean sat outside of the bathroom and listened for any disturbances, and then Dean took a shower while Sam stayed in the bathroom, and dressed, shaved, and brushed his hair. Dean would get out of the shower, wrap a towel around his waist, shave, go into the bedroom, dress, and then the two of them would stand side by side and brush their teeth.

Sam took advantage of their routine that day to corner Dean and talk to him about Andrew Winchester. "When he comes today we need to invite him in and actually talk to the guy Dean."

Dean sighed, pulled the toothbrush from his mouth, spit, and gave his brother a withering look. "Why? What is the point of talking with this guy? He wanted to know where Dad was, we told him, end of story." Dean said and went back to vigorously brushing his front teeth.

Sam removed the toothbrush from his mouth, spit, and returned, "Because he's Dad's dad."

Spit, "Yeah, and that whole "because I'm family" thing has always worked out so well for us in the past."

Sam spit and turned the water on and rinsed his toothbrush. "Dean. I've never met any of Dad's family…I'd like to see where we come from. I'm not suggesting we trust this guy. I just want to get to know him. Just a little bit." Dean looked up at his brother, Sam had turned on the full wattage of his puppy dog eyes, and then said, "You always said family is the most important thing." Sam didn't' have to pull out the big guns, the puppy dog eyes already had him conceding to his little brother.

"Fine. If he shows up today, and that's a big IF, then I won't push him out the door again. But I'm only doing this for you Sammy. I don't want him anywhere near either of us. But.." Dean licked his lips and threw his hands up and let them slap against his legs when they came down. "You win." Dean said and grabbed his over shirt and exited the bathroom.

Dean turned to his brother and asked, "How do you even know he will come back today."

Sam shrugged. "Winchester men seem to come by their stubbornness honestly Dean." Dean shook head and sighed.

"Whatever dude."

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Bobby smiled to himself as he heard Sam and Dean clomping down the stairs to the kitchen. Sam had slept mostly through the night last night, and Dean had indicated this morning, when Bobby had checked in on the two of them that it looked like today would be one of Sam's good days, which had been a relief. Sam didn't deserve to live like this, in a daze, or so exhausted that he could barely focus on anything. The boy had saved the world, had sacrificed himself so everyone could go on with their lives as if nothing had changed, and he was rewarded with night terrors and space out sessions that he wouldn't talk about. So when he heard the brother's bickering about something he knew not what, it felt like the good old days when the boys were teenagers and nothing could get in between them.

Dean grabbed coffee for himself and Sam sat down at the table and poured the cereal. Dean watched his every move very carefully, from pouring the cereal to putting the first bite in his mouth. It truly was going to be a good day today, and Dean thanked the real God for this little miracle.

"You sitting out in the garage with your brother?" Bobby asked as he took a seat next to Sam.

"No. I had an okay night. I'm feeling pretty good today, and I need to finish off Holbrook's stuff, and call him back." Dean snickered and put a cup of coffee in front of his brother and surrogate father.

"You sure you don't want to call in sick for that one boy?" Bobby asked with a hint of humor.

"Yeah, the dude thinks mustard can be used as a weapon against demons. We might consider letting natural selection take its course and allow a monster to eat him." Dean said with a laugh.

"Dean. That's not nice."

Dean smiled. "I love that you worry about that." Sam closed his eyes tightly and tried desperately not to roll them.

"And I think it is creepy that you keep saying that." He said with irritation. Dean muffled his humor behind the coffee cup.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

The cap to the uneventful day was Andrew Winchester pulling into Singer Salvage. Dean was walking from the garage to the house wiping his hands on a rag when he saw Andrew's tall figure step out of the car. Sam was right, stubbornness was most certainly a Winchester trait. He let out a frustrated breath and stopped short allowing the older man to walk to him.

"I want answers." Andrew said by way of greeting.

"And the only reason that you're going to get any is because my brother wants to get to know you." Dean said in a huff and simply walked towards Bobby's front door, and Andrew took that as a cue to follow.

"Sam!" Dean called when he stepped into the living room. "He's here!"

Sam emerged from the kitchen where he had spent most of his day answering phones and trying desperately to get Holbrook off of the phone. "Mr. Winchester." Sam said politely and walked forward and shook the older man's hand. "We met yesterday."

"Yeah, you're the one who isn't a son of a bitch." Dean growled and strode quickly to the kitchen.

"My brother is just being cautious."

"Your brother is an ass."

"That is my brother you are talking about. You are only here because I wanted to talk to you, you say one more derogatory thing about my brother, and you'll be lucky if all I do is kick you out on your ass."

Andrew stood up straight and when he did so, he and Sam were eye to eye. "You have some balls boy I'll give you that." Sam led the older man to the kitchen.

"You want a beer?" Sam asked.

"That would be nice." Sam glanced at Dean, and he went to the refrigerator and grabbed a holy water beer and practically threw it across the table at Andrew. Andrew and Dean glared at one another.

Sam ignored the open hostility and asked. "You asked yesterday how our dad died."

Andrew swallowed hard and took a swig from the bottle, Dean waited for smoke, and was disappointed when he saw none, he was itching for a reason to put Ruby's knife into the man's chest. "Yeah. How did my boy die?"

"Car accident. I was driving both Dean and Dad to the hospital, they'd had been a little accident while doing some work for some people, and a semi-truck came out of nowhere and plowed into Dad's side of the car. He reached out to protect Dean who was the more injured of the two of them, and he died because of it." Dean looked down at his boots, scuffed them against the dingy tile floor. He couldn't look up, couldn't face anyone when they found out that their dad died to save him. It was like an angry infected wound, that people poked at every now and then, but they only managed to make it worse.

Andrew nodded, blinked back tears, and took another swig. "Did he go quick?"

"Very quickly." Sam said.

"7 years ago you said?"

"Yes sir."

There was pause in the information sharing session, Sam wanted the older man to get ahold of his feelings, wanted him to be able to process what was going on. Sam understood what it felt like to lose the one person in the world who you loved above all others. But Dean, who didn't have patience for people who didn't hold their family tight and close, and who didn't have the patience of a saint when it came to other people exploded, "Why are you just now coming around sniffing for information, huh?" Dean asked harshly. Sam turned to find his brother in his defensive stance leaning against the counter his arms and legs crossed. Sam gave his brother a look that said 'not now' and Dean ignored it.

"I've been looking for your dad for 23 years."

"That's bull shit if I've ever heard it." Dean dismissed.

"I have. I've been looking for him ever since you were 9 years old. That's when he cut contact with me and his mother."

"Right, whatever. I was 9 years old. I knew what was going on, I would have noticed if there had been phone calls to an absent grandfather."

"Believe what you want kid…"

Dean stalked to the table, leaned in and in a lethal whisper said, "Don't you ever call me kid."

Sam put a hand on Dean's chest and pushed him back a little and looked Andrew in the eyes and asked, "Why did you lose Dad?"

He looked up into the angry face of Dean Winchester, and then back and the friendly curious face of Sam and said, "He quit calling once I threatened to call child services. He was dragging you boys all over the country, and for no damn good reason. He kept prattling on and on about having to find Mary's killer. Had to find Mary's killer. I told him that was what police were for, but my son was stubborn…"

"Family trait." Bobby said from the entrance of the kitchen. Dean jumped little at Bobby's sudden presence. He'd been so angry he hadn't heard Bobby come in. Bobby put a hand on Dean's shoulder, felt the tension radiating off of the younger man and gave a gentle nudge to pull him away from his position leaning over the table. Dean acquiesced and took a step back.

"I guess it is." Andrew said slowly. "John wouldn't listen. Said that he would find Mary's killer, swore up and down that she'd been killed by someone. It was just a simple house fire. Faulty wiring. Just an accident. And he had you boys running all over creation on his little insanity tour, and it wasn't right for you boys. Sam was five, Sam needed to be in school, regular school, and I told him so, and we exchanged some hateful words, and then I said I'd call Child Protective Services on him, get you two into my care, so you guys could have a stable life, and that was the last time I heard from him. Been looking for him ever since."

"Dad was right." Dean said softly with an edge of danger. "That son of a bitch who killed our mom was caught. He found him.

Andrew had a come back, wanted to throw it at Dean, but he remembered Sam's threat, and sensed that Sam wouldn't joke on the matter, so he continued. "My wife, she's real sick, been sick for a year now. I had to put her in a home. She wanted to see her boy again. So, I hired a PI and he led me here to you boys."

"I'm sorry." Sam said softly. "I'm sorry for all you have lost." And that melted Dean just a little, Sam had lost John too. Sam hadn't had time to grieve properly for their father, he'd been so busy taking care of a less than altogether Dean, and Dean knew it still hurt him to think of Dad, yet, Sam was able to feel bad for a man who hadn't seen his son in 28 years. His little brother, his soulful little brother, always amazed him.


	5. Chapter 5

"Thank you." Andrew said after a moment. Sam's apology truly touched him, this young man had lost his father and he still found it in his heart to apologize to him for his own loss

Sam simply nodded in response to Andrew's gratitude. "You were looking for us all of those years?" Dean asked softly.

"Yeah. I looked and looked for 20 years. The police gave a half assed attempt at looking for your father and you boys. They said that since he was your custodial parent, he hadn't kidnapped you, and they were too busy to look for a man who had possession of his own biological and legal children. But I looked as much as I could on my own." Andrew rubbed his forehead. "But military men, when they don't want found, they ain't found…and your daddy was a good soldier."

"So the only reason you found him, or us…" Dean said as he sat down. "Was because dad died, and he couldn't hide his tracks anymore."

"Guess so." Andrew said.

"Have you told your wife yet?" Dean asked without looking at Andrew. "Have you told her what happened to our dad?"

"No." He said. "I couldn't find a way to do it over the phone. I couldn't break her heart." Dean understood that. Understood what it was like to have to look people in the eye and tell them someone they loved was dead. It wasn't easy, it was downright devastating.

"We could go with you and help you tell her." Sam volunteered.

"Sam.." Dean started, and Sam put a hand up halting his brother's stream of words.

"Do you want us to go?"

Andrew gave Sam a sad smile. "I would like that. She'd like to get to see her grandsons again." He gave a halting laugh. "Well she'd probably like to see Dean again. You, Sam, she's never met you. We moved to Tennessee before you were born, and we were going to drive up to meet you right before your mother died."

"Didn't you come for mom's funeral?" Dean asked on the edge of disgust.

"We did. But Sam was with a family friend. You were too young." Andrew said to Sam. Sam nodded, 6 months old was way too young. Not that Sam would have recalled the funeral or anything having to do with it, but a child didn't need to see those things, didn't need to watch his father fall apart, didn't need to see the adults in his life cry and mourn the loss of his mother. Sam was glad his father had had that foresight to keep him out of at least that particular tragedy.

"But I wasn't left with the family friends." Dean asked bitterly. It seemed as if he never escaped the tragedies that befell their family, he was always forced to be front and center and be a witness to those he loved falling apart. It never seemed quite fair.

"No. You were there. You wouldn't let your dad not take you." That surprised Dean. Sam just nodded. It made perfect sense to him. Dean wasn't one to let something scary get in his way, was strong enough to bare the brunt of disasters and try to reassure those he loved that if nothing else he was at least still there. So, when he turned and saw his brother's shocked expression Sam was confused and curious. He didn't have time to question his brother, because Andrew continued with the story, "Apparently a fit had been thrown, and when we got to the funeral home, your eyes were still red, and tears were still rolling down your chubby cheeks, and you had your fingers stuck in your mouth, and you kept asking your dad if Sam was safe, and why Sam wasn't there, and if you guys could go get Sam. You were really worried about him. You didn't want him out of your sight."

"But I wanted to go to the funeral?" he asked. Dean didn't remember much of the aftermath of his mother's death. He remembered Sam being thrust into his arms, his dad saying "Take your brother outside as fast as you can! Don't look back! Now, Dean! Go." But the rest was a blurr, a blurr of faces, of houses, of hands. And when he stretched his memory back as far as it could go, he could only remember bits and pieces of his mom, of little things she did for him, of her love, of her attention and then he remembered being in the Impala with his infant brother, his drunk father, and he remembered taking care of his family, despite only being 6 years old. His silent year was forgotten to him.

"Yeah. And after we left the cemetery, you stopped talking. You didn't say anything the rest of the night, and your dad told me later that you weren't speaking at all."

"You quit speaking?" Sam asked bewildered. His brother had always been so energetic, so full of life, so easy to talk to, and one who loved to talk. Sam always knew that Mom's death had changed and affected Dean, but this information was new.

"I remember that." Bobby said from against the kitchen counter. "Boy was silent as the grave for at least a year or more. Best year or so of my life." Bobby smiled. "Now, you can't pay him to shut up."

Dean turned and gave Bobby one of his best sly grins and said, "Oh you could pay me. You, old man, just haven't offered enough yet."

"Oh, is that right?" Bobby bantered back. Sam smiled and shook his head. So much information, so much stuff he'd never known or thought to know.

"Johnny came here after he took off?"

"Yes he did."

"Why?" Bobby shrugged.

"Guess it was because I had a job for him, and I had connections that could help him find who killed his wife."

"You believed him?"

"Yes, sir. My wife was killed similarly to Mary. I knew what he was going through."

Dean cleared his throat, they were getting into dangerous territory, territory that led to explaining things that go bump in the night. Sam derailed any further questions and asked Andrew, "So, can we go and meet your wife?" Dean shook his head.

"Sam. We can't."

"You want to meet her?" Andrew asked.

"Yes. I wouldn't mind meeting her, and telling her about our Dad."

"I would like that."

"Good." Sam pulled out his phone. "What's the address of the nursing home? We'll meet you there." Dean got up quickly and went to the sink and got himself a glass of water. He had to put something in his mouth or he was going to say something, and that something probably wouldn't be appropriate for supernaturally virgin ears. Andrew gave Sam the address, and his phone number and bid them all goodnight. When the screen door slammed shut Dean whirled on his brother.

"What the hell Sam? We can't go."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Get off of it Dean. He's not a serial killer. We're just going to meet his wife. Tell her about Dad. That's it Dean."

"You don't' get it."

"What am I missing oh wise one." He asked and got up from the table and stretched his back and arms.

"**You** can't go Sam."

"Why can't I go?" Sam asked defensively.

"Have you forgotten that your wall came crumbling down not too long ago, and you still aren't sleeping through the night…"

"Oh come on Dean. Don't' be so dramatic."

"Night before last, you were up four times screaming because of hell dreams."

"It's not that big of a deal Dean. You had the same dreams, and you lived, and you weren't forced to stay here and recuperate like some invalid." Sam tried to dismiss the notion.

"Yeah, and that means I know what those dreams are like remember? And I didn't spend nearly the time in the pit you did. Nor did I spend my time being Lucifer's chew toy. I also didn't spend a year topside without a soul, and I didn't have to put myself back together after a colossal dick of an angel tore down the only thing in my head separating me from hell! You aren't okay Sam!"

Sam seemed to think over what Dean said. He shook his head. "I still want to go. We need to go."

"Sam. Have you forgotten that you have space outs where you look like a drooling vegetable?" Sam looked away from Dean, embarrassment coloring his cheeks. Dean winced at his choice of words, but they were out there and they were the truth, Sam needed to understand the risks. "What are we going to say when you have one, and you will have one Sam? I can't think of a slick answer that he'll buy. Can you?"

"Dean we're going, so pack your crap and get the car ready. We're going to meet this woman."

"No! You listen to me. I let you let that man into the house, I was even sort of nice…and now you need to listen. Your health is my top priority. I have a hard time taking care of you at night by myself."

"I don't need to be taken care of!" Sam said short temperedly.

"Sam." Bobby interjected. "Three hours ago, you wouldn't be arguing about this. You're just mad because Dean is telling you what to do."

"Damn right I am! I'm not a child."

"But, son, you aren't up to par. And we can't risk you out there, without protection. Dean can't watch you every single minute."

"Then you come with us Bobby. Help Dean make sure I don't flip out or whatever you guys are worried about."

"Sam don't do this." Dean said exasperated.

"Are you going or not Bobby?" Sam asked ignoring his brother. Bobby looked to Dean and then back at Sam.

"He's going to go whether we go with him or not."

"I know. Because he's a stubborn ass." Dean shot a look at Sam. Sam simply angled his chin up in defiance.

"Like I said earlier, it runs in the family."

Dean sighed and ran a hand down his face. "Fine. We'll all go. But you need sleep, and if anything goes wrong, I'm putting your ass back in the car and we're coming back. You hear?"

"Fine." For a moment Dean wanted to rage against his little brother, but the memories of him being soulless, of him falling into the pit, of him being dead and gone, still haunted his mind, and he couldn't' yell, couldn't get angry. He simply sighed, trying desperately to exhale the frustration from his tired body.


	6. Chapter 6

They didn't head out nearly as early as they had wanted to. Bobby spent most of the morning on the phone trying to get people to cover the yard, and just as he was almost done, Sam had an episode that left him out for longer than the usual 5-10 minutes. When Sam came to, he was foggy, confused and tired, all of which seemed to be normal for a prolonged episode. No matter how "normal" the resulting symptoms were, it didn't make Dean feel any easier.

"Sam." Dean started as he handed Sam a glass of water. "We shouldn't be going."

"We're going." Sam said through the cotton that seemed to be in his mouth.

He took big gulps of water, in Dean's estimation too big of gulps and said softly, "Easy, easy." At the reminder Sam slowed his intake. Dean put the glass in the sink and looked at his baby brother whose eyes seemed to be unfocused and his expression blank, and his body still wobbly. "Sam you aren't in any condition to go."

Sam's unfocused eyes found Dean's body and he swallowed, brought a shaking hand to his mouth and wiped the residual water, and shook his head slowly, trying to keep the dizziness at bay. "She doesn't have a lot of time Dean."

"But you aren't in the best form either."

"I'm not dying." Sam said pointedly. Dean turned away from his brother and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why couldn't Sam understand that it was too dangerous to embark on a trip from South Dakota to Tennessee? Sam was having such a hard time just existing, granted things were better than those first couple of days and weeks, but Sam was still unsteady, and the length of his episodes at the very least were unpredictable, and despite Bobby going with them, Dean was worried that taking Sam out of the familiar, out of the comfortable, and out of a controlled environment that things might get worse. They didn't know what stress would do to his already fragile state.

Sam huffed, and Dean turned to his brother. "I know you're worried. But Dean," Sam closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself, this particular space out had zapped all of his energy. "Dean, I can't stay here in these walls forever. Eventually we're going to be needed out there in the field, we're going to have to be on the hunt again, the apocalypse took out too many good hunters, and we've got to keep going."

"But it's only been a month Sam…just a little more time, that's all I'm asking. It's just too early."

"Dean, we've gone on hunts when one of us is pretty much still holding our insides inside our bodies, all we're going to do is go to a nursing home in Tennessee and see our grandmother. That's all. It's not like I'm going to be doing anything strenuous."

Dean gave a short bitter laugh. "Yeah right. It seems like every single time we meet someone from our extended family it's strenuous. It's always an ordeal."

"That was mom's side. The hunting side. This is Dad's side. We don't know anything about them. They're normal. If anything it will be basic family drama, and that's easy to handle." Sam pushed hair out of his eyes and sighed. "Dean.."

"Alright, alright. I get it. I get it. It doesn't mean I like it or agree with you."

"I'm not asking for you to agree. I'm just asking for you to quit arguing with me, and get our crap in the car and get going. It's a long drive."

"You sure you're alright?"

Sam nodded. "I'm okay. I'll just sit here and rest for a few minutes while you get things packed."

"Yeah. Okay." Dean acquiesced and left the kitchen reluctantly. Sam sighed and laid his head on the kitchen table. He was so tired, and fighting with Dean only made him more tired.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Sam had vague memories of the early days of their stay with Bobby, after the Cass incident, and he remembered sitting outside listening to Dean talk while Dean worked on the Impala. Dean's incessant talking used to drive Sam nuts and on a normal day he'd simply wish to tape his brother's mouth shut, and then on more extreme days (the days usually where Sam just wanted to read a book or study, or do something completely independently) he wished that he could pin his brother down and sew his mouth shut. But now, now, his voice was grounding, kept him in this world and out of hell, out of his own head. Even when he was spaced out, he could still hear his brother's chatter, and being able to hear that kept him from going insane.

While Sam had a vague recollection of watching his brother work on the car, and he knew that he knew that Dean had repaired the car, that he'd been driving the car, and hell he'd even seen the completed work on the car, he hadn't been in it since it had been fixed.

Sam climbed into the passenger's seat and he settled down, found the groove that hugged his frame exactly and sighed with a happiness. Dean turned the car on and the growl of the engine made Sam smile.

"Why are you so happy?" Dean asked as they pulled out of the salvage yard.

"It just feels like home." Dean allowed a small smile to pull at his lips.

The trip took two days, longer than it would have taken before the fracture of Sam's psyche. Dean made them take regular stops, and some not so regular stops, stops that required Dean to put a reassuring hand on the back of Sam's neck and talk him through an episode, while Bobby grasped his forearm and squatted beside the passenger's door.

They pulled into a motel when they reached the small town in which the Winchester's lived. Dean got them all motel rooms, and Bobby suggested that they call Andrew and get the details of when and where, and Sam made the phone call while Bobby and Dean settled into their rooms.

"Where?" Dean asked when Sam turned off his cell.

"St. Stephen's Nursing Home. It's on Maple street. She's in room 160. Andrew is there right now, and said it was okay if we go now."

"You sure you want to do this tonight? You have to be tired Sam."

"I want to meet her Dean. I'm sure. Let's get Bobby and get going."

SNSNSNSNSN

Dean walked behind Sam as they entered the nursing home, under the pretense that he wanted to be behind his brother in case he fell, or in case he felt dizzy, or in case he needed support. But truly, he was hiding behind his ginormous brother, hiding from the woman who was sick and dying in one of these rooms. He wanted to hang back, to find an excuse to run away when they found the room, and Sam knocked.

Bobby put a hand on his shoulder and Dean turned to face him. "It's okay son. I'll be right out here." Bobby indicated a chair that was a little ways down the hall. Dean nodded and followed behind his brother.

She looked better than he expected, but then again he had expected someone who looked like they were knocking on death's door, and he knew what those people looked like, that was for sure, once upon a time for a few hours he had been death. But instead she looked tired, and it was obvious her breathing was labored despite the oxygen traveling to her body through tubes.

She caught a glimpse of Sam and struggled to sit up, Andrew helped her, and arranged the pillows behind her. "Sam?" she asked in a wobbly voice.

"Yeah. I'm Sam." Dean's dew eyed brother said. She smiled and clapped her hands and laughed a little before falling into a coughing fit. Andrew put a hand on her back and offered her a glass of water, she shooed him away and indicated that Sam come forward.

"Come here. I want to see you." Sam shuffled close to the bed and she put her gnarled hands on the sides of Sam's face and she patted his cheeks. Tears brewed in her green eyes and Sam produced a handkerchief and handed it to her.

She blotted her eyes and looked to her husband. "Andrew. Go wait outside for a bit." Andrew gave her a concerned look and she gave a gentle smile. Andrew brushed past Dean and closed the door behind him.

"My goodness you are so tall." She said.

"Yes ma'am. 6'4."

"You get that from the Winchester men. They are all 6'3 or taller." She ran a hand down his arms and encouraged him to sit on the end of the bed. He did as instructed. "I've waited almost 30 years to see you, and it has been worth the wait. Tell me about yourself. Come on. I want to hear all about you."

"Well…" He resisted the urge to look at Dean. "I graduated valedictorian from my high school."

"Ohh!" She said with a happy clap.

"Got a full ride to Stanford University."

"For your grades?"

"Yes ma'am."

"What do you do for a living now?"

"I had to leave school. There was stuff going on a home. I had to come back and take care of it." Her eyes held sorrow just as quickly as they held joy.

"Oh..that's too bad. When are you going back?"

"I don't think I will. Been out of school for far too long, don't think I want to go back. I'm happy where I am."

"That's wonderful. As long as a man is happy with his job, that's all that matters. You don't need a fancy education to be happy." Sam smiled and shook his head.

"No. That's true."

"Where do you work?"

"I work at Singer Salvage. I work the books and the phones for Bobby. My talents are better suited there than under the hood of a car. I'm pretty much good at putting gas in it and turning the key and driving."

She laughed. "Me too. Your daddy was really good with cars. Could fix anything. All he had to do was put his head underneath that hood and it was fixed."

"I know. Dad was really good with cars."

"He had that beautiful Chevrolet Impala. Most impractical thing your daddy bought, but he was trying to impress your momma I think. My, she was a beautiful woman."

"She was. At least what I can tell from the pictures I've seen. I don't remember her."

"Of course you don't. Awful thing not to have a mother."

Sam smiled. "I did okay. I had a wonderful big brother." she looked from Sam to Dean and smiled.

"Dean! I didn't see you there! Come here! Come here! Don't stand in the shadows so!" Dean took a couple of steps forward and she smiled.

"Oh my you are handsome!" he blushed and turned his head down. "Seems you've got the Flannery green eyes." He looked up.

"I do?"

"Oh my yes. I have them, and my mother had them. Just be happy you didn't get the red hair that comes with them." Sam laughed.

"Well your beard does come in a little red."

"Shut up." Dean jabbed with a smile.

"Now boys." She teased and reached out for Dean's hand, he came to the side of the bed and she took his hand. "What have you been up to since the last time I saw you. You were so little." She said wistfully looking up into eyes she had seen in the mirror her whole life.

"Nothing really. Sammy's the smart one." Dean smiled. He was embarrassed. He hadn't done anything spectacular. He barely got his GED and he hadn't done anything like go to Stanford on a full ride, or do anything that he could talk about. And he doubted greatly if this woman would think cutting the heads off of vampires, or saving little kids from skin walkers was real much less something to be proud of.

Sam sighed and rolled his eyes. There were times that Dean was way too modest, modest to the point of making himself look like he was worthless and nothing more than a hustler, and womanizer. He was so much more than that, Sam always wished that Dean could recognize the good in himself as easily as he could recognize the good in someone else. "He can build anything out of almost nothing. He works with Bobby out in the yard, that Impala dad had, well, it got wrecked twice and he's fixed it both times, it's in perfect condition, you'd never know anyone hit it. He helped raise me, he was the one who quizzed me for tests, made sure my homework got done, taught me to tie my shoes, taught me what it means to be a family." Dean blushed under Sam's praise.

"That's nothing to slouch at." She smiled and looked past Dean, into the doorway.

"Would you like me to get your husband?" Dean asked.

"No. No. I was just wondering when your Daddy was going to come out of the shadows and see his mother." She called out, assuming that John was right behind the curtain. Dean looked at Sam, both didn't know how to proceed. She had to know...she had every right to know what had happened to her son.


	7. Chapter 7

Andrew Winchester closed the door behind him and sighed. Bobby watched the old man stare at the door in the same fashion that Dean had stared at the panic room door while Sam was detoxing, a mix of anxiety and pain that seemed to be a Winchester trademark. Andrew stood there for a few moments but then the desire to move must have overtaken him and he began to pace the floor in front of the door, never going far enough in either direction to lose sight of the door, or be outside of earshot.

"Pull up a chair and sit down. You're wearing a hole in the carpet." Bobby said gruffly after watching Andrew pace for ten minutes. Andrew looked up at Bobby and confusion clouded his face. "The boys are fine. They won't hurt her." Andrew reluctantly picked up a chair and set it beside Bobby.

"I'm sure that's true of Sam. I don't trust Dean."

"He don't trust you either." Bobby said with a hint of anger. He knew that Dean was rough around the edges and he knew that he came off as cold and slightly dangerous but it never made it easier for Bobby to hear someone make derogatory remarks about the elder Winchester brother.

Andrew heard the tone in Bobby's voice and recognized it for what it was, "You're protective of Dean."

Bobby nodded. "Protective of both of them boys."

"I don't think Sam needs an added layer of protection. I think Dean has that covered."

"Eh. Sometimes, Sam needs protecting from Dean's over protectiveness." Bobby ran a hand down his beard. "Look. I know that you don't like Dean. It's written all over everything. And honestly, the way the boy has treated you, I can understand it, but Dean's had a hard time with extended family. For years, it's just been him and Sam. And in the last couple of years, grandparents and extended family have come out of the woodwork and Dean wasn't as cautious, he let them in, and well, they hurt him all over again, and they hurt Sam. So, Dean doesn't trust anyone just because they claim to be family."

Andrew nodded. "But you're family." Bobby shrugged in response. "It wasn't a question. Dean defers to you as if you were his father."

"Guess so."

"But he had a father—my son."

"Mr. Winchester. Your son quit being Dean's daddy long before he died."

Andrew felt instant anger surge through his veins. His son was dead, and this man, this gruff, uneducated man, who lived in a house that looked more like a run down shack than a home, had the nerve to disparage his son's memory. "And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" Bobby sighed inwardly.

Bobby opened his mouth to respond, with what he didn't know, but whatever it was silenced when he heard the door open and saw Dean step through.

"Uhhh…Andrew…your wife wants to know where our dad is. Do you want us to tell her?"

Andrew looked up at Dean and for the first time didn't see hostility on the young man's face he only saw compassion and empathy. "I want to be in there, but yes, I think it's best if it comes from you." Andrew got up and went into the room ahead of Dean.

Bobby saw the tension on Dean's face and was at his back in a second. "You need help son?" Dean looked back inside and then to Bobby. Bobby could see that Dean wanted to accept the help, wanted someone to in essence hold his hand, but he also knew Dean well enough to know that he wouldn't accept the help. He foolishly believed that if something was emotionally difficult that he alone should be the one to deal with it.

"No. Thanks." Dean gave Bobby a small smile and Bobby clapped the younger man on the shoulder.

"I'll be right here if you need me." Dean nodded.

Dean closed the door on his support and his confidence and stood beside where Sammy sat next to the older woman on the bed. "Where's Johnny?" She asked when the door was closed.

Sam smiled at her. "He's gone. He died a couple of years ago." Sam said in his entirely Sammy way, that if they hadn't been sharing with the mother of their father that their dad was dead, Dean would have smiled at the Sammyness of the way he was speaking to her.

Her hands went to her mouth and her green eyes filled with water. She reached a hand out to her husband and he took it. "No. No. That can't be true. Andrew…" She looked up at him hoping to be reassured and instead his eyes fell to the sheets keeping his wife warm.

"How?" She finally asked. Sam recounted their practiced story about the car accident and Sam threw in a little bit about the aftermath that was true. Stuff about how Bobby took them in and cared for them as if they were his own, and how hard Dean had taken their father's death because he looked up to him so, how he and Dean had come out of the grief and the pain when they caught the man who had killed their mother and who they suspected may have orchestrated the car accident, because John had come dangerously close to finding the killer of his wife.

Andrew watched as his wife took it all information, tears in a free flow down her face and as the story was told to her she held his hand tighter and tighter until finally she pulled him to her and in order to not fall over he sat down on the bed beside her, facing Sam. Dean felt the urge to step away, to step further into the shadows, because surely she was going to come out and blame him for his father's death. It was his fault. If John hadn't saved Dean, then he would still be here, the Yellow Eyed Demon would still be dead, Sam wouldn't have gone to hell, and Sam would be happy, healthy, probably back at Stanford, and wouldn't have hell circling his brain all of the time. Dean took a couple of steps away from his brother, away from the family scene in front of him. All he did was destroy families.

Mrs. Winchester caught sight of Dean's movement, and saw the stricken look on her eldest grandson's face. He thought it was all his fault, she could see that written all over him from the tight line of his mouth, to his down cast eyes, to the hands shoved deeply in his pockets to his hunched shoulders. She pulled away from her husband and looked Dean in the eye "It's natural for a parent to want to save their child." She remarked and continued to cry, grief washing over her in waves. "I waited every day to hear if your daddy had been hurt in the war. I always knew it was a possibility. Your daddy always fought for those he felt couldn't fight for themselves. He wasn't drafted, he volunteered for the war. Said he wanted to help those people. So, it's only natural that he'd die to protect his eldest son."

Dean crossed his arms, trying to protect his emotions more than his physical body. Sam turned, haunted eyes seeing his brother's reaction and wishing he knew how to fix it, but he couldn't. He couldn't fix it when their dad had died, and he couldn't fix it now, and that inadequacy weighed on his already fragile mind.

"I'm sorry." Dean said softly from the sidelines. "I'm sorry he died for me."

John Winchester's mother put her hand to her mouth at the apology. Dean couldn't look at her. He wanted to run, run far and run fast. "Come on Sammy." Dean said and put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Let's give them some time alone." Sam turned to his brother, knowing what the real reason was, Dean didn't want to hear her yell at him, didn't want to hear all of the scathing words that Dean believed about himself. Sam got off of the bed and left the room hearing only an old woman's sobs.


	8. Chapter 8

Sam stumbled as he walked, Dean had a grip on his shoulders in seconds steadying him. "You okay?" Dean asked quickly and maneuvered him into the chair that Andrew had pulled next to Bobby's. Bobby helped Dean set Sam down gently in the chair. Sam hunched and put hands over his ears and began to rock.

"Sammy?" Dean asked worriedly.

"I'll be okay…just give me a minute." Sam continued to rock and Dean continued to panic. He knew something like this would happen. It wasn't like Hell was going to leave his brother alone long enough to visit a grandmother he didn't even know he had. Damn Castiel and his breaking of his brother's wall.

Dean rubbed soothing circles on Sam's back, trying to calm his own nerves with the contact. Sam's muscles seemed to relax a little and Dean squatted down next to his brother trying to look into his downcast face. The rocking was slowing and Sam was taking deeper breaths than he had been before.

"Just thinking about Dad, is all, that…that…."

"Left you vulnerable."

"Yeah….and…and if I'm not thinking about it, if I'm not working on…" Sam swallowed.

"Keeping Hell at bay?" Dean asked quietly and looked over his brother's hunched form at Bobby, wishing, not for the first time, that there was something he could do to help his brother, something he could give him something he could sacrifice that would make this better, something that would make it less difficult on the man who never deserved to go to hell in the first place.

"Yeah." Sam said and pulled his head up. He looked worn, squidgy around the edges, and he finally opened his eyes and they were glossy, and tired. "I'm okay." He said finally.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. It was a small one this time. I'm tired now."

"You need food first."

"I'm not hungry."

Dean stood and encouraged his brother to do the same. Sam stood on shaky legs, Bobby and Dean sandwiched the taller man in an effort to keep him vertical. Dean put a hand on Sam's back to steady him. "There is a diner down the street. We need to eat something, you need to eat something. You haven't eaten more than three cheese sticks all day. You promised me that you'd eat, and that you'd listen to me if you weren't taking care of yourself." Sam smiled. He did remember that promise. Dean had been adamant about it. Dean had even packed sandwiches, fruit, cheese, fruit juice, water and Gatorade in the cooler instead of beer—something that had surprised and touched Sam to the core.

"You did promise Sam." Bobby countered. "And you haven't eaten much."

"Okay. Okay." Sam relented without any heat. "Food then sleep."

"That sounds more like it." Dean said and the three of them started for the exit of the nursing facility.

"Wait!" Dean and Bobby turned around and saw Andrew walking towards them. "Where are you going?" He asked slightly angry.

Dean straightened up. "Sam needs something to eat and then he needs to go to bed. It's been a long day." Dean said authoritatively.

"You boys don't get to come in here and tell my wife that her son is dead and then disappear."

"We didn't ask for that responsibility. You gave it to us."

"Dean." Bobby said quietly. Andrew wasn't simply mad, he was grieving for his son as well, and the only connection he had left to his son was the two men standing in front of him, and Bobby instinctively knew that Andrew couldn't let them go with the possibility of never coming back again, and thus effectively losing the last link to John Winchester that Andrew would ever have.

Dean, however, had a problem seeing the forest for the trees when Sam was hurt. "My brother needs to eat and needs sleep. That's what we are going to do." The way Dean said that made Andrew look more closely at the scene in front of him. Sam looked as if he had run a marathon, and both Bobby and Dean were holding the younger man up by the arms.

"What's wrong? You sick?" Andrew asked.

"Yeah. Something like that." Sam said tiredly. "I promise we'll be back in the morning, but I need food and sleep. I can't go much longer." Andrew didn't want to take that answer and Sam sensed it. "You want to grab something to eat with us?"

"Sam!" Dean chastised. Sam waved him off.

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"We'll be at the diner down the road. The one with the 24 hour sign in the window."

"Daisy's. I eat there a lot."

Sam nodded. "Okay. See you there." Dean took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. His protective instincts had been on all day and he thought that they would finally get away from that which made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, but because Sammy was well…Sammy, that wasn't likely to happen for quite a while.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

"Dean when he gets here you have to be nice." Sam said after they had been seated. Bobby settled himself on the opposite side of the boys and nodded at Sam.

"Yeah, Dean you are going to have to calm down."

"I don't even know why you invited him."

"He's our grandfather…" Sam put a hand up silencing Dean. "And I know how it worked out the last time. I was the one who put a bullet in his head. I know. But this is different. It feels different Dean." Vulnerability and sadness flowed across his brother's face so quickly that those who weren't attuned to Dean, who hadn't grown up with him, who hadn't shared close quarters for 25 years, who hadn't helped raise him, wouldn't have noticed. But Sam and Bobby did. They both knew that one of the true reasons for the hostility he exhibited towards Andrew Winchester was fear. Dean had very tight walls, and hardly anyone was ever allowed through it, but in the last couple of years a couple of people had made it through his defenses and he had lost them all. Dean was scared that these people would betray him or that he would lose them as well. People simply weren't something to be trusted. Bobby and Sam both wished that Dean hadn't had to learn that lesson, but he had, and it seemed to be reinforced at every opportunity.

"He just wants to know more about you boys and your daddy." Bobby said.

"Fine, I'll be nice. I'll even tell the guy stuff about Dad if he asks."

'That's all we're askin' for Dean." Bobby answered.

The bell chimed above the door and Andrew strode through. Sam waved him over and he came to the table and took a seat next to Bobby and in front of Sam.

"We ordered you a cup of coffee…hope that's okay." Sam said softly, his head was beginning to pound like it always did after he thwarted Hell's attempt to take him over and leave him spaced out to the real world.

"Thank you."

"How is she?" Sam asked.

"Upset. But she's doing as well as can be expected. They gave her something to help her sleep." The waitress came with a cup and poured coffee inside. "Thank you darlin'" She smiled and walked off.

"Why did you want to come?" Dean asked.

"I wanted to know more about Johnny." Dean sighed to himself, Sam and Bobby had been right.

"What do you want to know?" Dean asked.

"What kind of father was he?" Bobby glanced at the older man over his coffee cup. This question was a direct result of the half-assed conversation the men had had while Sam and Dean were talking to Andrew's wife.

"He did the best he could." Dean said and took another drink of coffee.

"What did you guys like to do together…?"

"We liked to hunt." Sam supplied.

"Hunt? Your daddy a hunter? That's hard to believe." Sam and Dean resisted the urge to turn to one another. "He once hit a deer with his truck and he was a mess for a week."

"People change." Dean said. The waitress came and took their orders and left them to their awkward exchange.

"Did you guys end up living in South Dakota?"

"No."

"But I thought your dad got a job with you?" he pointed a finger a Bobby.

"He had a job whenever he was there. He would come and stay for a month or so and then leave again."

"You boys never had a permanent home?" He asked astonished.

"No. We lived all over the country." Dean said.

"But Dad took us on all kinds of adventures. We saw the world's largest ball of twine…" Sam started.

"Four times." Dean supplied grimly and took another sip of coffee.

Sam nodded. "We've been to all of the major zoos and cemeteries in the country. We had lots of fun." Dean looked at Sam. He was lying and Dean didn't like that Sam had to lie for their father.

"It was rough." Dean admitted. He had never said anything negative about their childhood. Dean always found a way to make even the worst situation seem like a positive thing. It had been something Sam had counted on his entire life. So, to hear Dean admit that things were rough to someone other than Sam and Bobby took both of them aback. "We never stayed in one place, money was always tight, and sometimes dad would be gone for days at a time. There were times that dad was gone so long looking for the man who killed our mom that there wouldn't be enough food for both of us, so I wouldn't eat so Sam could. Dad did his best, but he was driven to find the man that murdered our mom."

Andrew leaned back against the chair. Food was delivered and Dean made sure Sam got everything he had asked for and then began getting his own food situated on his plate and pretended that he hadn't said anything derogatory about their father moments ago.

Andrew looked at Bobby. "I thought you helped take care of the boys."

"I did, when John would let me. But he didn't like people getting into something that he believed was his territory, and those boys were most certainly off limits."

"Unless he needed someone to leave us with." Dean said.

"Dean." Sam scolded. He had let the other stuff go, but this out and out derogatory comment took Sam off guard.

"What? You want me to talk, or don't you? You want me to be honest? Or don't you? Just tell me what you want me to say. I'm tired of getting yelled at for not saying anything or saying too much. What is it?" Dean asked angrily. He didn't like being put in situations like this. Didn't like having to toe an interpersonal line he wasn't familiar with. "I'll be back." Dean said and put his napkin on the table, looked at Bobby, assured himself that Bobby would look after his brother, and headed for the men's room. Sam watched him go, sad, tired and worried and then looked back up at his grandfather. He was at a loss, he didn't know what to say.


	9. Chapter 9

They all watched as Dean stormed into the bathroom and the door swung shut behind him. Andrew turned to Sam, who had a pained expression on his face, and he felt sorry for the younger man for having to deal with such a tempestuous temper that Dean seemed to possess.

"Well if that wasn't a display." Andrew mumbled and broke a piece off of his biscuit.

"Dean doesn't like to talk about Dad." Sam said coolly, unhappy with Andrew's previous statement.

"I can see that. Is he always that temperamental?" Andrew asked and he immediately knew that was the wrong thing to ask.

"My brother is a passionate man. And our dad is a subject that is very difficult for him to discuss, and what he said to you was the most honest thing he's ever said about our father." Andrew stopped with his fork halfway between his plate and his mouth.

"What he said was true?"

"Every last word of it." Sam said and took a deep breath willing his anger to simmer down, because any strong display of emotion on his part tended to open a back door for Hell to swoop in and overtake him.

"I can't believe that your father would leave you guys alone for so long that there wasn't enough food."

"You said yourself that you wanted to call social services on him. You can't be too terribly surprised." Sam said, trying not to sway. He was really fighting to stay in control and to not let Hell and Lucifer take him over. He looked to the bathroom door willing Dean to come out, willing Dean to sense his distress.

"I knew that he was moving you guys around all of the time, and I knew that he was obsessed with finding the phantom person that he swore killed his wife, and I wanted you two to go to a real school. But I never dreamed that he would leave you guys alone, that he would forget to have enough food in the house." Andrew shook his head and sat back in his chair. "No. I won't believe it."

"You can not believe it all you want." Bobby spoke up, taking over for Sam who looked like he was on the verge of collapse. "But it's true."

"If it was so true, why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you get social services involved?" 

Bobby put down his glass of cola and turned tired angry eyes to the older man sitting next to him. Just as he was about to say something, Dean sat back down at the table, noted how tired and distressed Sam looked, realized that his gut had been correct and put a hand on the back of his brother's neck trying to stave off the inevitable space out and turned to their grandfather. "Because, Dad would have taken off with us and Bobby would never ever have seen us again. When Dad went to ground, he went to ground."

"D'n" Sam slurred distressed.

"Bobby I'm going to get him out of here."

"You do that son. I'll take care of the bill."

"Thank you."

"What's happening?" Andrew asked as he watched Sam begin to crumple, his mouth hung slightly ajar, and his eyes rolled around in his head as if he were a doll with googgly eyes.

Dean ignored his grandfather's question and began getting Sammy out of his seat and hoping that Sam's legs wouldn't give out completely before he got him in the car. "Come on Sammy, you can do this, you can make it. The car is just outside. Fight it little brother. Fight it."

"What in the hell is going on?" Andrew demanded again and stood up. Dean already had Sam's arm slung around his shoulders and had a death grip around his back, and he and Sam were already half way to the door, Sam's legs acting like rubber and barely holding his 6'4 Winchester frame up, his legs often crumpling under his weight and Dean holding him up steady as he could. The door closed behind the two of them and Andrew turned back to Bobby who was hurriedly asking the waitress for boxes for the untouched food Sam and Dean had left but were sure to want later.

"What in the hell is wrong with Sam?"

"You should ask Dean." Bobby said and finished scraping the last bits into the containers that had been brought out promptly by the waitress, and pulling out cash to lay on the table for the bill.

"That wasn't an answer."

"That's the most answer you are going to get out of me." With that Bobby was out the door and walking towards the motel that was no more than a block from Daisy's Diner.

Andrew hurriedly threw money on the table for his bill as well and followed Bobby out of the diner.

"I'm coming with you."

"Dean ain't gonna like that."

"He doesn't have a choice."

Bobby stopped and turned to the older man. A grin on his face. "There are things in this world that you should just leave alone sir. One of them is Dean Winchester when his little brother ain't well. He's worse than a momma tiger with a cub. He'll eat you alive if he thinks you are posing a threat."

"A threat? What?" Bobby shrugged and headed as fast as his legs would take him to the motel. The Impala's engine was still ticking when Bobby passed, and he pulled out a key card, knocked twice, announced who it was, and entered the room. Dean had Sam on the bed, wrestling him to get his coat off.

"Need help?"

"Please." Dean said softly. "You're okay Sammy. You're here with me. You are in a motel room safe and sound. Those are Bobby's hands on the other side of you, he's helping me get your jacket and over shirt off. Want to make sure you are cool. I know you don't like the heat." Dean spoke softly and soothingly as he pulled clothes off of his brother, pushed hair out of his brother's face. Once the coats and shirts were taken off, Dean laid his brother against the head board while Bobby removed boots. Dean put a hand on the back of Sam's neck, Sam's eyes were hazy and still googgly and a thin line of drool was beginning to stream down his chin.

"Bobby a wet washcloth please." Bobby nodded and hurried into the bathroom.

"What's going on? Is he okay?" Dean looked up angrily at the man who wanted to claim family.

"He's sick." He said and took the washcloth proffered and he began to wipe down Sam's mouth.

"I can see that. But what's wrong with him."

"Long story."

"I have time."

"Well I don't!" Dean snapped. "I have a brother to take care of."

Andrew's bristled at the younger man's impudence. "He's my grandson."

"And you're another absent male figure in our lives. You have no rights here. You can leave now. I have a brother to take care of and I don't need to babysit you."

"I'm not leaving." Andrew said and sat down in the chair next to the desk. Dean glared at him weighed his options, knew that he could either hurt his brother more by being tense and yelling at the man who had plopped his self-righteous ass in that chair, or he could will calmness to consume him and try to pour that calmness into his brother who was suffering in ways that Dean would never know despite his own time in the hotbox.

"Fine. Whatever." Dean turned his attention back to Sam. "Bobby we need to sit him up." Bobby and Dean, with an ease that demonstrated extended practice, pulled Sam's large body up against the headboard, and then Bobby retrieved the pillows off of Dean's bed, and as Dean arranged Sam's behind him Bobby added the others.

Andrew swallowed. He wanted to leave, but he had made such a big production out of staying…he was stuck watching his grandson fall apart.


	10. Chapter 10

Dean started to get agitated at the hour and a half mark. Sam's eyes were still unfocused and pupils were dilated to that of small saucers, his jaw still slack, head bent forward. Dean sat beside him, talking to him, reassuring him that everything would be alright, that he was right beside him, that whatever he thought he saw wasn't real, that they were right with him. But Dean's words were ineffective, the only thing was seemed to be effective was the cloth that Dean kept at the ready to dab even the tiniest amount spit off of his lips.

"Bobby it's been almost two hours." Dean finally said. Bobby nodded.

"It has son. But we both know that Sam will be back in his own time."

"But what if he doesn't come back this time?"

"He came back the first time and that was the hardest. Don't you think?" Dean looked from his brother to Bobby and finally conceded a nod. "It's been a rough couple of days for him. He hasn't had to talk about your daddy's death in a long time. It's hard. Makes it rough for him to stay with us." Dean nodded again taking some solace in Bobby's reassurances.

"Now, son. There is food in a box on the table. You need to eat. You haven't eaten a lick in almost 24 hours. Get something in you."

"Bobby…." Dean began to protest.

"That wasn't a request son. That was an order. You're no good to Sam if you're weak from hunger." Dean glared at him and Bobby just pointed towards the food. Dean got up, shaking life back into his legs and headed for the food. "And get yourself a shower and take a leak while you're at it. And I ain't takin' no for an answer." Dean sighed and went for the bathroom. Bobby heard the water turn on in the shower and scooted closer to the other Winchester. He took up the rag that Dean had abandoned and wiped the spit from the younger's mouth.

"You're brother 'll be back soon son, he just needs to take care of himself. You'd be yellin' at him if you were here. Just get back soon boy. You're doin' okay. You're okay."

"What's wrong with him?" Andrew asked from his position in the corner of the room.

"That's for Dean or Sam to discuss with you." Bobby went back to checking on the youngest hunter.

"Why don't you people tell me anything?"

"They've told you quite a bit sir. But Dean doesn't trust you."

"Why hasn't Sam told me anything then? It isn't like Dean owns him."

"No. But they've learned the hard way in the last couple of years that it's best if they stick together. And I suggest you don't try to pit one against the other or you will lose in more ways than you know." They heard the toilet flush, sink water run, and Dean emerged from the bathroom, he was wet, and was wearing only jeans and a t-shirt, Bobby chose not to question Dean on the speediness of the cleansing process.

"How is he?" Dean asked and went straight to his brother.

"He's the same. I told you to eat something too. Don't you go trying to get out of it." Dean grumbled and went to the table, located his meal from the diner and began stuffing it into his face as fast as he could. "Slow down son." Dean didn't listen. Finished his meal and went back to his brother. As soon as Dean touched Sam's bare arm Sam took a deep breath. Dean smiled.

"You coming back to us little brother?" Sam's eyes focused and turned sluggishly to his big brother.

"D'n."

"I'm right here Sammy. We're in a motel room. It's 1 in the morning.

"Water." He whispered. Dean obeyed and helped his brother get a drink of water from the bottle on the nightstand.

"You okay?" Sam nodded.

"How long?"

"Almost two hours."

Sam rested his head against the headboard and sighed. "Felt like years."

"I know it did buddy I know. Come on let's get you up, you need to use the bathroom, and then we'll get you all tucked into bed after you've had a snack." Bobby and Dean helped Sam up and they walked him to the bathroom, Dean going just inside, and Bobby standing by the doorway, both waiting and willing to help Sam if he needed it. They were out of the woods for the moment, but both Dean and Bobby knew that tonight was going to be a screaming night.

And true to form it was. Sam woke everyone up, screaming. Dean was up in a flash on top of the bed, hands on his brother's chest pushing him as gently as possible back towards the wall, and Sam's screaming didn't stop.

"HOT! MAKE THE BURNING STOP!"

"Bobby! Ice packs!" Dean barked. Andrew, who had been startled from his own sleep in the chair by the wall, stood waiting for what he knew not, but watched as Dean and Bobby took ice packs from a cooler, Dean putting one on the center of Sam's chest, and Bobby stripping socks from large feet and putting one on the soles of each foot. It took time but the ice packs did their job, and Sam stopped screaming, and calmed down. His breathing evened out and he looked exhausted.

"You want a shower?" Dean asked once Sam had calmed down. Dean had learned some time ago that it wasn't a good idea to try to get Sam to open up after one of these episodes. It was best to try and move things along in the most normal of ways possible. And as always after one of these episodes, Sam had sweat was dripping from his face and hair.

"Yeah. Yeah. Shower would be good." Sam said in a hoarse voice.

"Okay, come on, I got ya." Dean helped Sam to the bathroom, and Andrew heard the shower turn on and the shower curtain close. Dean emerged from the bathroom and rested his head against the door frame.

"What was that about?"

"Sam's been through some things." 

"Obviously. What happened?"

"He was a prisoner of war." Dean said knowing that a normal person would need a normal answer, a normal reason for why a grown man was screaming in the middle of the night, for why he would space out, go virtually comatose for hours at a time.

"Your brother was in the war? The Iraqi war?"

Dean debated for a moment and then nodded. "We both were."

Andrew's eyes smiled. "Just like your dad?"

"Yeah. Just like dad. Sammy enlisted right after dad died. I'd been in since I was 18, Sammy was taken a little over a year ago. Didn't know where he was or how to get him out. They tortured him." Dean swallowed tried to keep the tears at bay. "I'd gotten out of service right before he did his last tour. There was nothing I could do. Finally, a higher up found him and they got him out. And now he's like this." And this too was another thing that Dean Winchester blamed himself for. But Andrew didn't need to know that. The story he'd been weaving for this man was already shaky enough, and if Andrew thought about it hard enough he just might start to see the holes. Best to keep as much of this to the truth with as few details as possible-details that showed just how Dean had let his little brother down.

"PTSD is rough on soldiers. Why isn't he in a hospital?"

Dean swallowed trying to keep the anger down. "Because they would just drug him, call him crazy."

"But a hospital can help him. The VA hospitals can do so much for the veterans."

"You might be able to leave those you love in hospitals and only visit them when it serves you. But I can't do that. I would die before I would leave my brother anywhere to rot." Dean turned and went into the bathroom he had to get away from Andrew before he went off of the handle. It wasn't just Sam who was having a difficult time dealing.


	11. Chapter 11

It was some time later before both boys emerged from the bathroom. Dean looked around, "Where is he?" Dean asked coolly.

"He left. Said he had stuff to do."

"Good. Sam we need to get you back home." Bobby inwardly smiled. It always made him happy that the boys felt like his place was home. He'd always wanted children and these two were the closest he was ever going to get, and when they said stuff like that, it made it all feel more real, and Bobby liked that.

Dean braced for Sam to argue with him. "Yeah. I'm ready to go home." Dean shared a surprised look with Bobby over Sam's head.

"Just like that?" Dean asked because there was no way in the world he was just going to leave it at that.

"I'm exhausted." Sam said as he took a seat in the chair that Andrew had occupied all night. "And I didn't particularly care to have an audience while I had…" Sam shrugged. "You know."

"I'm sorry, I didn't want him here." Dean said trying to morph Sam's humiliation into irritation with him.

Sam gave a small smile. "Of that I'm sure."

"Okay, let's get our crap and head back to your place Bobby."

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Sam asked for and received information regarding what transpired while he was out of it. Sam nodded, and mumbled acknowledgements until Dean finally said, "Then he had the nerve to tell me that I should put you in a home or a hospital or something. Can you believe that? I mean, you take care of your family. You don't throw them away."

He expected Sam to agree, to be outraged at the idea that Dean send him to a home. But instead he was greeted with silence. "Sam?" Dean asked and looked over at his little brother. Sam was staring out of the window, watching the scenery fly by them. "Sam?"

"You know…he has a point Dean. It would be easier for you to dump me in a home."

"I would never do that to you. They would just drug you up, or worse, put you in a strait jacket, or maybe do that thing where the cut out some of your brain to make you sane."

"Lobotomy." Sam supplied.

"Yeah."

"Maybe it wouldn't be so hard on me, you know, if I was drugged up all of the time."

"What are you talking about Sammy?" Dean asked. He heard his brother's breathing hitch and a small whimper.

"I can't do this Dean." Sam started to cry. He couldn't stop the tears from coming. "I'm in pain. I'm tired, I'm scared all of the time." Sam covered his eyes and tried to stop the tears. "Then when I'm not reliving hell, I'm remembering all of those horrible things I did when my soul was downstairs." If Dean hadn't listened to Sammy-cry-speak for his entire life he wouldn't have understood a single syllable. He turned his blinker on, signaling Bobby that he was going to pull over and found the nearest shaded area and put the car in park, got out, threw open his brother's side of the car.

"Come on." He said. Sam looked up, his hazel eyes more green, a true indication of how upset he was, and Dean reached a hand out. "I said come on." Sam got out of the car reluctantly. "We're going for a walk."

They walked away from the car, down the deserted country road, listening to the corn rustle, and the sounds of the crickets down the way, the only sound of civilization coming from the rhythmic pounding of their boots on the asphalt.

Dean waited for Sam's breathing to even out again, waited for the sounds of tears to fade away before he spoke. "Sam. I'm not going to dump you in a hospital."

Sam reached up and wiped his nose with the back of his coat sleeve, Dean sighed and reached in his pocket for a handkerchief and handed it to his brother. "Dean, I don't know, maybe I should be in a hospital."

"What are you going to say? 'Uh yeah doc, I need meds to get me through my dreams of hell, of Lucifer torturing me in his cage in the hotbox. No I'm not crazy. I'd really like to do group therapy with others that have been there.'" Sam gave him hard sad eyes. Dean continued. "Sam, I'm the closest thing you're going to get to group therapy." He said sadly. "I'm the only other person in the entire world that's been where you've been. Granted I didn't do time with Lucifer, nor as long, but I was there. I understand."

"That's just it." Sam said and tried to keep the tears at bay. "You were there and look at you. You came back and you were okay….you were able to hunt, you were able to function like normal people. I can't even stay inside my own body all day. I freaking space out, drool like a baby, and you have to take care of me. Then in the middle of the night I scream bloody murder and you and Bobby have to hold my hand and calm me down like a child. You didn't' need that."

Dean watched their feet, felt their rhythmic pace, his shoulder touched his brother's and he admitted, "I did need it. But there wasn't time. We had an apocalypse to stop, you weren't in your right mind. Hell neither was I. I drank too much, I ate too much, I was scared of my own shadow, I hunted to prove I wasn't scared, and hunting scared me. I was no better off than you are now."

"But Dean…"

"No more. I won't hear of any more talk about taking you to a hospital. If you want drugged out of your mind, I'm sure I can find you something. But I'm not going to let you not deal with it. Because, I learned that you have to deal with hell in order to get past it." Sam nodded and pulled is top lip into his mouth, biting down on it to keep himself together. He knew his brother was right, he knew it. But it didn't make anything easier.

They got back to the cars, Bobby was standing next to his, arms crossed and ankles crossed, and he looked to Dean first when the boys approached. "Everything okay?" he asked.

"I think so." Dean said.

"Yeah. I just needed a walk." Sam added and knew that Bobby saw through it, and would probably ask Dean all about it later, but for now, Sam just wanted to play it cool.

Everyone tucked themselves back into the car and Dean had just pulled out onto the road again when Sam's cell rang. "Hello?"

"Sam. It's Andrew." As soon as the name was said, Sam felt a welling of embarrassment overtake him. As if it wasn't bad enough that he had to endure hell and all of the memories that went with it, he now had to be embarrassed that someone else had seen what he was reduced to when Hell overtook him.

"Hello." Sam said civilly trying not to show the embarrassment he was feeling acutely.

"Sam, Ella, your grandmother, wants you and Dean to come back. She wants to talk to you guys for a little bit before you guys go back to South Dakota. Can you do that?" Sam looked at Dean and saw the muscle in his jaw jump. The mere mention of their new grandfather was enough to make Dean clench his jaw so tight that his muscles twitched.

"Andrew we're on our way back to South Dakota."

"How far out are you?"

"A half an hour."

"Please. Come back. She wants to see you boys one more time."

Sam debated for a second and then put his phone up against his pant leg. "Dean…"

"I don't want to go back."

"She wants to see us."

Dean stopped. He glanced over at Sam. "Us. She wants to see me too?"

The tenderness in his brother's voice threatened to start the tears again, he sometimes forgot that his brother was constantly wishing for a mother figure. "Yeah. Both of us."

Dean seemed to mull this bit of information over and he finally sighed. "Fine. But not for very long." Dean listened as Sam told Andrew what his brother said, and Dean's stomach knotted. Of course she wanted to see Sam. He hadn't gotten her baby boy killed…him…him she probably wanted to rip him a new asshole. And he felt he deserved it. That was the reason he had caved, that was the reason he was turning around, that was the reason he was going back to the nursing home…he felt that he needed punished for his sins. Because obviously in his masochistic brain, hell hadn't been punishment enough.


	12. Chapter 12

AN: I want to thank every single one of you who has read this story. I've been totally shocked and awed by the response to this story. I never thought people would like it. So I want to thank those who have taken the time to write reviews, they are most appreciated, and at the same time I want to apologize for not writing all of you back like I should, that is very very wrong of me and I deeply apologize. Again, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

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><p>Sam walked ahead of Dean into the nursing home. It was rare that Sam walked in front of his big brother, despite their height difference, Dean always stood in front, and often times proved to be a far scarier man than Sam, even without the added inches in height and shoulder width. But when it came to matters like this, Dean allowed Sam take the lead, preferred that Sam be the point of contact, because Sam was always better at it. Sam had a natural way with people, a smile that could soften the hardest heart, a way of speaking that engaged people, and a patience that allowed him to be a good listener. Dean valued life, valued all people, had no problem what so ever, giving his life so another could continue theirs, but it was rare that people took an immediate shine to him, so in matters of interpersonal needs he deferred to Sam, and this time was no different except that Dean was infinitely more nervous.<p>

They both nodded to Andrew as they walked inside the room after a brief announcement of their arrival. Ella, their grandmother, smiled when she saw the two of them, squeezed her husband's hand once, and said, "Sam, Andrew….could you give me and Dean some time alone?" Sam looked to his brother and Andrew looked to Ella, both had a question on their face, both were trying to make sure that it was okay, that they were both sure that the one they valued as much if not more so than their own lives could be left to defend themselves if needed. Dean gave a curt nod, and Ella gave a gentle squeeze and both Sam and Andrew exited the room quietly.

"Go on now, close that door." Dean did as instructed, and she patted the bed beside her. "Come on, sit down. I want to talk to you."

Dean looked back at the closed door, wished fervently for his brother to be there with him, to deflect what he knew was going to be a vicious verbal assault. Dean had watched Lisa go after a woman who had simply insulted Ben and it had been a side of her that he had never known she had possessed. It was angry, it was vicious, and it was scary as hell…and that person had simply hurt Ben's feelings, Dean had gotten this woman's son killed. He hoped that his emotional walls were strong enough for this.

Dean decided he would be safer if he didn't sit. "I'm okay standing." He said finally, crossing his arms in front of his chest, trying to protect himself.

She sighed and took a moment to readjust her position on the bed. Dean grew more anxious the longer this took, and he wished she would simply yell, hit him, throw things, or whatever it took to get her aggression out, and get it over with already. The not knowing, the anticipation was killing him.

"Dean." She began. His eyes shot right to hers. "Dean. The last time you were here you said that you were sorry about your dad dying for you."

"Yes ma'am." He said in a clear voice, he was determined to at least appear strong.

"I don't understand why you would say such a thing."

"Because he was your son…and if it hadn't been for me, he would be here.." Dean shrugged he wanted to say that his father was worth more than he was, wanted to tell her that her son had wasted his life, his very soul, on a man who couldn't keep it together to save his brother, to keep from breaking the first seal, to keep from making a general all around mess of the world. "Because you need him."

Tears sprang to the old woman's eyes and she lifted a tissue from the folds of the bed clothes and blotted under her large glasses and pulled the tubing from her nose and dabbed underneath and said, "Dean, it's true, I wish I could see your daddy one more time before I go, and when your grandfather told me that the PI he hired had found a strong lead saying that John was in South Dakota, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't so excited that I nearly pushed him out of the door." Dean's eyes fell to the floor for a moment before his mind said _No, you do not have the right to look away, while this woman is suffering because you weren't man enough. _"I told every nurse and doctor that came by that my husband found our son, the son who took off and disappear years ago. And then you boys showed up, and your daddy's gone, and it hurt a place in my heart that I didn't even know I had." She sniffed and wiped her eyes again. "That's the God's honest truth. But sweetie, it isn't your fault that your daddy's gone. Your daddy only did what any normal parent would do. He saved his baby. It's only natural. He just wanted to make sure his baby was okay. And I don't blame you Dean." She licked her lips. "Come here boy." She demanded.

Dean reluctantly took a few steps towards her out stretched hand, and grabbed his coat sleeve and pulled his arm up and took his hand. "You are so handsome." She said in a quivery voice. "So handsome." She said again and tears began to flow.

Dean was about to say something when he heard Sam's voice from outside the door, it was louder than his normal speaking voice, which because of it's normal low intensity made it louder than normal, and it had a heat behind it that he hadn't had since the return of his soul and since the two of them were back on the same page, back working together. Dean let go of his grandmother's hand and flew to the door, his name on her lips, he flung the door open to find Andrew in front of Sam, and Sam looking definitively upset, Bobby had a hand on Sam's arm.

"What's going on?" Dean asked. Sam's nostrils flared in response. Dean looked from Andrew to Sam to Bobby and then inquired again, "What's going on?" With a force that normally got people to do what he wanted.

Bobby finally turned to Dean and said, "This fool here thought that he was going to convince your brother to commit himself. Tried to _explain _ to your brother that it would be easier on me and you, that maybe he needed the proper medication."

Dean's eyes narrowed and he advanced on his grandfather. "YOU do not get to chose what happens with MY brother. Is that clear?" Andrew backed up a little as Dean advanced, his grandson was a scary force when he was angry, he thought he had seen Dean's anger before, but apparently he had only witness annoyance, slight frustration, before tonight.

"He needs help." Bobby was amazed that the elderly man had the gall to say that to Dean.

Dean's eyes were a storm of green fury and then a coldness set in, "You lured us back here, you made her say those things to me, you made her talk to me alone, because you wanted to get my brother committed to a nut house without my permission." Dean accused.

"I just want what's best for you and your brother." Andrew tried to rationalize. But there was no rationalizing when a mother bear feels as if her cubs are being threatened.

"How dare you?" Dean asked through gritted teeth. "How dare you come into our lives out of the clear blue and put demands on us, and then have the audacity to tell me what I should do for my brother. I've raised him. I know what to do when he's hurt, because, dude, we've been hurt a lot more than you will ever realize, and one thing your son taught us was how to take care of each other. And, never once did those lessons include you. So you can shove it up your ass. We're leaving." Dean said in a flurry. "Come on Sam. We need to get you home." Sam glared at Andrew, followed his brother and Bobby close behind, and Andrew deflated and plopped down into a chair, and put his head in his hands.


	13. Chapter 13

AN: Again, thank you everyone for your kind reviews and dedication to this story. It warms my heart every time I read a review. Thank you! Stacey.

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"Andrew?" Ella called from her bed. Andrew looked up to the ceiling, sighed and entered the room where the love of his life lie looking frail and fragile.

"Andrew, what was all of that yelling about?" When Ella noted that neither Sam nor Dean was behind her husband she turned her eyes straight to Andrew's. "What did you do Andrew?"

"I thought… I thought I was doing what was best." He said and sat down in the chair next to his wife's bed.

"And just what did you think was best?" Andrew sighed and related the story back to his wife, about Sam and Dean both being soldiers. Ella swelled up with pride as he related the boy's military service. She remembered how proud and noble Andrew had looked when he came back from Korea in his military dress, and she could remember how proud and scared she had been when John announced that he was going to join the marines and he was going to fight for his country. It seemed only fitting that John's children would follow in their father's and grandfather's footsteps.

Then Andrew explained to her that Sam had been taken prisoner by the enemy. Ella's eyes filled with tears. Her youngest grandson, her baby's baby, had been hurt and she grabbed hold of Andrew's arm.

"They must have done some wicked things to that boy." Andrew said with downcast eyes. "He just zones out, and Dean had to reassure him that he's with him, and that he's okay. Dean takes such good care of him. But then there were the nightmares." Andrew wiped a hand down his face. "They are so bad that they could make a grown man cry. Dean knows just how to take care of him. Knows exactly what will make it better."

"Then what did you know best about sweetheart that made Dean get so furious?"

"I suggested to Sam, that maybe, you know, that he should go to a VA hospital and get treated."

"You suggested that he go into a mental hospital?" Ella asked and wiped a tear from her soft cheek.

"Yeah. I think it would be best."

"Best for which one?"

"Both."

"Oh Andrew. You are such an old fool." She turned away from her husband. She wiped a tear from her eye with a shaking hand…she would never see her grandsons again.

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Dean slammed the car door so hard that it rocked the black beauty. "I was snookered again!" Dean yelled as he put the car into gear, checked haphazardly, and pulled the car out of the parking spot at speeds that had the tires squealing, and rubber burned onto the asphalt behind them. Dean was in no mood to go slow and allow Bobby to catch up.

"I can't believe that he went behind my back…no I can. It's something Dad would have done to me. Hell it IS something Dad did to me." Dean rested an elbow on the window and pushed his hand through his hair with a force that should have pulled hair out of his head. "I know what's best for us. I've always known what's best for us. I'm the only one that's been here for everything. And that bastard has the nerve to use his wife to get me to come back, so he can try to get you committed!" Dean chewed on the inside of his cheek trying not to let his emotions get the best of him, the forgiveness she had given him was for naught, it was a ruse, a ruse to get him separated from Sam a way for Andrew to get at Sam.

"Aren't you mad Sam?" Dean asked after a moment of his brother's silence.

"Yeah. I'm mad." Sam said in a controlled voice. He no longer had the luxury of nurturing his anger. Allowing anger to grow inside of him now just lead him to losing himself, and after listening to Andrew give him reasons why he should be in the nut farm instead of with his brother and Bobby, he was more focused and more determined than ever to get better, to beat hell back, to take back his life, to live his life doing what he did best…saving people.

"That's it?" Dean asked obviously still angry. "That's all you've got to say?"

"Yeah that's it. He was wrong to do what he did. He was a jack ass. But I can't say that I regret coming." Sam said finally. Dean heaved a sigh. If he hadn't been driving he would have banged his head hard against the steering wheel. Why did Sam always insist on punishing himself? Why did Sam always make things so difficult?

"Of course you can't." He muttered.

"I want to get better." Sam said. "I want to prove to that son of a bitch that I don't need to be locked up, that I don't need to be medicated, that I'm fine right where I am, and most importantly that he was wrong." Dean spared a glance at his brother, and the corners of his mouth tugged up in a smile.

"Okay Sammy. I can get on board with that."

"I figured you could." Sam laughed a little. "What did Ella say to you?" Sam asked knowing that Dean's anger had abated enough to ask this delicate question.

The smile left Dean's face and he clamped down. "Nothing Sam. Nothing."

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_A few months later…_

Dean pulled the collar up on his jacket as he headed back inside Bobby's house. October was a chilly month out here in South Dakota, and Dean wasn't sure how well he and Sam were going to survive the winter out here.

Sam looked up from his pacing when Dean entered the kitchen. He held out an index finger indicating for Dean to wait a second. "Yes…Holbrook…trust me. I know how to get rid of a demon, and I swear to you that there isn't a form of mustard in the entire world that will dispatch one. I swear." Sam sighed and pushed shoulder length hair away from his eyes. "Holbrook!" he said making a fist with one hand, and his mouth and face drawing tight lines in frustration. "Holbrook! Stop. Talking! No! No! No! ONLY SALT. Not mustard. Not celery seed." Sam stopped mid rant, then he threw his hand up in the air and yelled, "Garlic? No! I don't care what Morgan told you! He's screwing with you. Fill your gun with rock salt! Fine! You don't believe me! I'll have Bobby call you back!" Sam slammed the phone against the wall and took a deep breath and sighed. He looked towards his brother who was resting against a wall, ankles crossed.

"Celery seed huh?"

"Why isn't he dead?" Sam asked.

"That is one mighty good question."

"Where's Bobby?"

"What? You want to pawn Holbrook off onto him?" Sam nodded. Dean chuckled. "He had to make a run to the city, they want to sell some scrap, so Bobby headed out there to quote them a price." Sam nodded and sat back down at the makeshift desk.

"You know. I will never EVER take Bobby's role in this life for granted ever again." He said as he pushed hair out of his face.

"You're going to have to cut that before we go on the hunt this weekend." Sam and Dean were trying to ease their way back into hunting. Under Dean's ministrations, conversations, and understanding Sam had come far. The nightmares were less frequent, and he zoned out so rarely that when he did, Dean mistook it for daydreaming at first. His brother was coming back to him in little bits and pieces, and albeit different, changed and more mature, he was coming back.

"I'm not cutting it." Sam said with a smirk.

"You can't fight monsters when you can't see them because you have hair hanging in your eyes." They had this conversation often and it amused Sam that it bothered Dean so much that his hair was long enough to pull back into a pony tail. Drove his elder brother nuts, and for some reason, that was motivation enough not to cut it.

"I'll pull it back. Don't worry." Sam said with a smirk. Dean sighed and got a bottle of water from the refrigerator and glared at his brother.

"You don't any research on the thing nabbing kids in North Dakota?" Dean asked. With Sam feeling so good lately they decided that it would be okay to try and go on small hunts that kept them close to Bobby's house. This was going to be their first hunt back, and truth be known Dean was a little excited, it had been a long time since he took out some dick, and his hands itched with anticipation.

"Yeah, a little. But I haven't been able to find anything much, just that it seems to be tied to a cycle. Every sixteen nights the thing comes and nabbs a kid from their ho-"

"Sam and Dean Winchester get your asses out here!" A loud voice slurred from outside of the window in Bobby's kitchen. Sam grabbed the gun from underneath the table, and Dean slowly pulled the curtain from the window and his eyebrows flew to his hairline, and it was like someone put his anger in a pot and turned on the heat.

"It's Andrew."

"What?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. Good old Grandpa Winchester is outside." Dean looked a little longer, and sighed. "He's drunk." The chef in Dean's stomach turned the heat up on the stove and the first bubbles began in his stomach.

Dean threw open the door and stalked towards the older man. "What in hell are you doing here Andrew?"

"You lied."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked as Sam joined his brother.

"You weren't soldiers. You made up that bull shit. I came here for the truth."

"We don't owe you anything." Dean said self righteously.

Andrew rushed Dean and grabbed him by the collar. "My wife went to her grave angry that I took away her chance to get to know her grandsons, and here I find that everything you ever told me was a lie. You owe me a lot boy!" And Andrew forcefully shoved Dean, and Dean took a couple of steps back to compensate. He looked at his brother…there wasn't a way out of this.


	14. Chapter 14

Hello again! Thank you guys SO SO SO SO much for all of your kind reviews and thoughts! I've loved each and every one of them. I only had a few minutes to reread through this, so I apologize for any mistakes! Thank you for reading!

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><p>Bobby put his keys on the table next to the front door. The highways were brutal, there had been two accidents, and hundreds of rubberneckers. Bobby had a theory that if people didn't slow down to look at the carnage left behind by two cars going high velocities and crashing into one another, that an accident wouldn't shut down a major highway for hours, or make the traffic crawl at an infinitesimal speed. He supposed that if these people had seen half of the horrors that he had in his lifetime, they wouldn't be so inclined to look at the mangled bodies and metal on the highway.<p>

He shrugged the thoughts off, and went deeper into his house. He expected to see Sam in the kitchen, on the phone, probably with Holbrook again, and Dean sitting at the table with him drinking a cup of coffee researching the hunt they were talking about attempting this weekend, but the phones were on their hooks, Dean's laptop wasn't even open, and no Winchester brother was to be found. Then he heard it. He heard the yelling coming from the back yard. It sounded like Dean was shouting at…Bobby waited a moment and realized that it was the voice of Andrew Winchester.

"Balls!" Bobby muttered and strode towards the back door, picking up his trusty shot gun on the way out.

Andrew was about six inches from Dean's face, drunk and yelling about how Dean was a liar, and Bobby found himself impressed that Dean wasn't the one shouting back. No one got in Dean's face like that and expected to get out unscathed. But there Dean stood, back bowed slightly away from the taller man, and nose at an angle trying not to inhale the man's booze breath. What was impressive was that it was Sam yelling. Sam had taken over the verbal assault. It was Sam, who was standing behind Dean, taller and straighter than Bobby had seen in a long time, yelling back at granddaddy Winchester. Bobby noted that he would have to take a moment to be impressed by the display after he took control of the situation and got the obnoxious man off of his property. Bobby cocked the shot gun, the sound silenced Sam, and would have silenced Andrew as well if he hadn't been yelling loud enough that his neighbors three miles away could hear it. So, to get the man to shut up, Bobby put the shotgun in Andrew's chest and nudged the elder man away from Bobby's boys.

"I suggest you quit yelling at my boys." Bobby said calmly.

Dean swallowed, the last time Bobby pulled a shotgun on someone was their dad. And that memory made Dean sad and uncomfortable all at the same time.

"Your boys?" Andrew slurred. "They aren't your boys. They are my son's boys. You have no right…"

"I have every right in the world. Their daddy is gone, and someone needs to watch over them, and that's what I've been doin'."

"They are grown men, they don't need someone to watch over them. What are you, some kind of pervert?"

Bobby pushed the shotgun a little harder against the man's chest. "I understand you're grieving, over your son, and I'm gonna assume, judging by the state you're in, your wife too. I respect that. I've been there couple of times myself. And I'm going to give you the benefit of a second chance. You either get your act together, and state your business, or you will get your ass off of my property and away from my boys. I ain't going to ask you again."

"I'd believe that too if I were you." Dean said casually. "Gave that same ultimatum to Dad, and Dad was never allowed back."

"Now. What do you want?"

Andrew swayed a little and then said, "These boys, of _yours_ are liars. You know that? Liars."

"Are they now?" Bobby asked. "And you came all of the way out here to tell me, to tell them even, that they are liars?"

"I want the truth."

"What truth are you looking for?" Sam asked bitterly. "Truth you want to hear?"

"No, damnit! I want the truth about my son."

"That is one thing that we did not lie about." Dean said angrily.

"I don't trust you." The distraught man said. For the first time since they had met their grandfather they saw him as a weak and fragile old man. Sam and Dean shared a look. He stood there in the muddy ground of a South Dakota salvage yard trying to reconcile the loss of his only son and the loss of his wife. Sam and Dean both knew what it felt like to lose the one person in your life that meant the most to you, and they knew that grief made one do crazy things, and sympathy replaced the bitterness in Sam's stomach, and sympathy began to abate the anger in Dean.

Dean took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Come inside."

"We'll talk." Sam finished. Bobby nodded taking his cue from the boys, and lowered the shot gun.

Sam turned and walked in first, followed by Dean. Andrew stood there dumbfounded. "I suggest you go in there. Them boys can forgive family one time, then it's done. You better not screw this up." Andrew nodded. "Go. Git in there." Bobby said and gestured with the shotgun to the door that had just closed behind Dean.

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Once inside they Andrew sat down at the table Sam had occupied most of the afternoon, and Dean and Sam stood at the kitchen counter, arms and ankles crossed, casualness that only the skilled observers of Winchesters would know was deceptive. Both bodies mirrors of each other, Bobby had to repress a smile, the boys were back on the same page, they were once again comfortable with each other, they trusted each other again, and their synchronous body language confirmed it.

Bobby put a bottle of water in front of the older man. "Might want to drink this, help you get sober, this might be a long conversation." Andrew took a sip from the holy water infused bottle of water. The sound of the bottle being returned to the table was the only sound in the little kitchen. Andrew stared at the boys, and the boys stared at the man who tradition dictated they should call grandfather. It was a staring contest of Winchester proportions, and one didn't often engage in such practices with two stubborn men who had survived the depths of hell, but Andrew didn't know any better, but ignorance wasn't going to be Andrew's saving grace.

"You lied to me." Andrew grumbled.

"We did." Dean said.

"You boys weren't in the military."

"We both served in a form of military. We just let you believe it was one sanctioned by the government." Sam said.

"If it wasn't a military sanctioned by the government, what the hell kind of service have you boys been in?"

"One that is very important to this world. We were on the front lines saving the world from the apocalypse." Sam said chin angled up with a hint of pride that he had never felt before when he thought of what he and Dean had done for the world: grief, pain, guilt, loss, worry, and panic, those were emotions that were common, that usually filled both of them up to the point of overflowing, but somewhere in the healing process, somewhere in conversations with his brother over his role in the near destruction of the world, guilt had abated and a sprinkling of pride was filling the gaps left behind by the receding emotion.

Andrew snorted. "I must be drunker than I thought. You aren't making any sense boy."

"We saved the world from the devil and a crazy ass angel." Dean said. "Is that plain English enough for you dude?"

"You boys are delusional." Andrew turned to Bobby. "You can't tell me you believe this nonsense."

Bobby shrugged. "I'd like to think I had a hand in the saving of the world too."

"Oh, so you are all nuts." Andrew put his head in his hands. "I ask for the truth and you give me nonsense?" Andrew got up and headed for the back door.

"You leave, you may not get another chance to ask your questions." Sam said without looking at him. "It's true. You can look it up. You might want to start with your family tree. Your side of the family houses the vessel line."

"What? Vessel? What are you talking about?"

"We're descendants of Cain and Able. The two brothers who went postal on each other. Look it up." Dean said and pushed away from the kitchen counter to look at Andrew. "Well, let's just say, the devil needed some skin, and so did Michael, because they are two douche brothers who don't know how to keep their petty squabbles in their own backyard and tried to drag me and Sammy into it. They made some judgment errors."

Sam snorted a laugh. "That's an understatement."

"And let's just say we beat them at their own game." Andrew stood there and stared at them as if they both had grown a second head and a second set of arms. "Your son raised us to hunt evil. Taught us how to protect ourselves, and how to survive. We've hunted ghosts, we've hunted vampires…"

"Skinwalkers, shapeshifters," Sam picked up the list, "We've even hunted fairies. You name it. We've hunted it."

"And that's the God's honest truth." Dean said into the unbelieving face of Andrew Winchester.


	15. Chapter 15

AN: Thank you guys again for all of your wonderful reviews, I am deeply touched and humbled. This chapter is half of this conversation. I just wanted to get something to you guys because it's been a couple of days since I updated. I will get you guys the other half in the next couple of days. Enjoy!

"Angels." Andrew said gruffly reminding Dean of their father. "Angels are real?"

Dean nodded. "Yup. My thoughts exactly at first."

"You can't be telling me the truth." Dean sighed and took his coat and over shirt off and handed the articles to Sam, strode to Andrew and rolled the left sleeve of his black t-shirt up to his shoulder revealing the white handprint scar that Castiel had given him the day he raised him from perdition, saved him, unleashed him on the Earth with a greater purpose than simply to hunt things and save people.

Andrew looked at the scar and his eyes widened. "What in the hell?"

"An angel," dean licked his lips "Castiel" The name was difficult to say, difficult to hear after all that had transpired with their former friend. "Castiel pulled me out of hell, and he pulled my soul out of the pit with such force that it left a physical scar." Dean let the sleeve fall back down over the scar that Dean tried most days to forget was there and took the clothes that Sam held out to him and put them back on.

Andrew shoved hands through his thick white mane and went back and sat down at the table. "I think I'm going to need a stiff drink." He had come to them drunk, raging and ready to do battle with boys half his age and stronger and healthier than he had been in his prime. But good drunk he had made for himself that had given him the courage to come out here and demand the truth had slowly slipped away, and in its place uncertainty and disbelief resided. He wasn't sure if he wanted to believe this whack-a-doddle story these boys were going to tell him, but there had been truth to Sam's words, he could feel it, he could feel that Sam believed that he had saved the world. He could feel that Dean believed that they were part of a bloodline that was in a sense heaven sent. And the man in the trucker hat sure as hell believed every word that Sam and Dean said, trusted them, even supported their story. That had to mean something.

Sam shared a look with his brother. Sam could sense that Andrew was wavering on whether or not to believe their story. Dean nodded, he understood. They would have to reveal truths that they weren't used to revealing both personal and professional. They pushed away from the kitchen counter and took their usual seats at Bobby's kitchen table.

Bobby joined the Winchester men moments later with glasses and "the best rot gut this side of the Mississippi." And poured each of the liberal glasses of the amber liquid.

Andrew downed his portion quickly and had to shake his head to get the sting out of his eyes. "That's some seriously potent stuff."

"Has to be. Lots of tough crap falls on our heads around here. Lots of blood spilt. Lots aches to drink away." Bobby said philosophically.

Andrew looked at Bobby and his grandsons with wariness and asked, "And your father…he knew about all of this…" Andrew waved his hands in front of him searching for the words and finally came up with, "angel crap?"

"He might have known some of it." Sam said finally. "He knew that there was a bigger plan, but anything beyond that is just speculation. We were strictly on a need to know basis. And if he knew about the angels we apparently weren't the ones who needed to be in the know." Sam tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but all of these years later it still got to him, even though he had forgiven his father, he wasn't always able to forgive his actions.

"I think he was trying to protect us." Dean said.

"But you said that you were in hell?"

"Yes sir."

"Literal hell."

"Fire and brimstone." Dean said trying to support his horror movie notions of a place that Dean had never been able to find adequate words to describe.

"But how…"

"I died. I died protecting Sammy. Hell hounds came, ripped me to shreds and took my soul to hell. Did four months there." Dean said in a nonchalant tone, but Sam could sense the tension underneath the flippancy.

"Four months huh?" Andrew asked and poured himself another glass of Bobby's best rot gut. The glass shook on its way to his mouth. "You literally were in hell…with the devil?"

"No. I did time with Alistair, his chief torturer. Sammy did time with Lucifer."

Startled Andrew looked at the sweet eyed boy with the floppy hair. There was a part of Andrew that could believe that Dean had done time in hell, he had that dangerous air about him, but Sam, Sam…

"You did time in Hell too?"

"Yes sir." Sam said with more courage than he had. The only people he had spoken to about his time in the hot box were Dean and Bobby, and Bobby only recently.

"Did this Castiel angel bring you back too?"

"Yes sir he did." Sam said stiffly.

"You have a scar like your brother?"

"No. Castiel didn't leave a mark on me. I went down there with my body and soul together. My time was different than Dean's." Bobby reached over and poured another glass for the eldest Winchester.

"It's a lot." Bobby with understanding.

"What was my son's role in all of this?"

"He hunted all of that evil stuff…pretty much our whole lives. He wanted to make the world safe for people like you, people who don't know about these kinds of things." Sam answered.

"He was out hunting these things when you were little kids?"

"Yes." Dean said. "That's why we moved around so much. We were constantly on the road going after vampires and stuff like that. He was really looking for Mom's killer, but he'd settle for offing some two bit monster on the way." Dean supplied.

"Did you go on these hunts with him?"

"Yes." Dean said. "When we were little we would go with him and he'd park the car far enough away that the monster wouldn't see or come after us and I'd keep Sammy entertained in his car seat while Dad took care of the monster. Sometimes I'd hear it and I'd cover Sam's ears because he was too little to hear the sounds they made. Sometimes they sounded human, and Sammy was too little…" Dean took a long drink from his own glass and then continued, "Then I was old enough to stay in the motel or apartment alone, and Dad would give me a gun and tell me it was my job to protect Sammy."

"How old were you?"

"8? 9? Somewhere in there."

"You knew how to shoot a gun by 8 years old?" Andrew asked aghast.

Dean chuckled. "I knew how to shoot a gun by 6." Dean shrugged. "I was the one that had to protect Sammy. I was the one that had to be able to take care of anything that came through that door that might hurt us while Dad was away. I knew how to use a gun as soon as I was able to hold one. I was a damn good shot too." Dean said with a lopsided grin. "Then when I was about 16 and Sam was able to take care of himself for short periods of time, I went with dad and helped him take out the evil sons of bitches. Then as Sammy got older we taught him, and he came with us."

"John did that to you boys?"

"I don't know if he did it TO us. But that was our lives growing up." Dean said in a matter of fact tone.

"So when you asked if we were in the military." Sam started. "The answer is yes. We've been in the military as long as we've been able to hold a gun in our hands."


	16. Chapter 16

Andrew took another long gulp from his glass. Then he fixed the boys with a stare. "If what you are telling me is true…" he began. "And your father left you boys alone all of the time, why hadn't anyone called children's services?"

"You tried and look where that got you." Sam pointed out.

"But I was far away, I couldn't get to him, I couldn't see what was going on. Teachers…the schools…people should have known."

"What? That our father was out chasing monsters instead of home with us helping us with our homework?" Dean scoffed and took another drink from his glass. "A couple of people tried. They saw what was going on, and as soon as Dad caught wind of CPS, we were in the wind, five states over and two below. Then I was old enough to know how to hide it, know how to make sure no one caught wind of what was going on. I faked being everything from hoodlum, to grunge, to foster kid, just so no one asked questions. Then I'd make sure Sammy was dressed pretty okay, always had everything he needed, and never looked underfed. That way no one would have a chance in hell of breaking us up."

"Breaking you up? They would have sent you to me. I wouldn't have broke you boys up."

"I thought you were dead." Dean said simply with a shrug. "And I knew people would take Sammy in a heartbeat. Good natured, smart, sweet, everything any parent would want in a son. But I knew that they wouldn't want me. I wasn't someone that would be taken. I'd be someone who was tolerated."

"Dean.." Sam said softly.

"It's true Sammy." Dean shrugged. "That's how life was back then. I didn't want to be separated from you, so I didn't allow CPS to catch wind that we didn't exactly live under the best circumstances."

Andrew eyed the boys cautiously. He sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and asked, "If you boys were bounced around so much, how did Sam manage to get a full ride to an Ivy league school?"

"When I turned 18, I had us stay with Bobby as much as possible. I would go on hunts with Dad as he needed me, and the rest of the time, Sammy got to stay in one place. Got to go to the same school. I made sure he got his education, because it was important to him."

"Did you even finish high school?"

Dean sat up a little straighter. "No. I did not."

"So…"

"I have my GED. I have my high school equivalency. School wasn't important to me like it was to Sam. I knew my life was going to be hunting. And you don't need to show a monster your degree before you fill it full of bullets." Sam and Bobby both wilted around the edges. Both had tried to get Dean to finish high school, both had wanted more for Dean than a GED and the hunter's life. But they hadn't been able to convince Dean, hadn't been able to make things right for Dean. It was still something that bothered the both of them, because when you love someone you want the best for them, and Dean hadn't always gotten the best of anything.

"Your dad was okay with that?" Andrew asked.

"He encouraged it." Dean said. Sam turned sharply to Dean.

"He did?"

"Yeah. It was easier for me to hunt and take care of you when I wasn't in school. Plus, he said that I was the one that caused trouble at school, and brought attention to us, so he thought it best that I quit school when I turned 18." Sam swallowed. All of these years he thought that it had simply been Dean's choice, and he had tried so many times to convince Dean that it wasn't a good choice, but all along, Dad had been whispering in Dean's ear, telling him that it was best not to finish school, that it was best to devote his life to other people and protecting his brother, that it didn't matter if Dean was happy, or educated. Now Sam understood why even the puppy eyes hadn't worked on his elder brother….Dad's orders had trumped puppy eyes back then.

Andrew put the glass firmly on the table, leaned forward and gave a sly grin. "And that is a lie."

"No sir it is not."

"Yes, it is. Your father valued school almost as much as he valued service to his country. He would never have encouraged either one of you to drop out of school."

"It's the truth."

"None of this has been the truth. This has all been one line of bull shit after another that you have been trying to feed me." He stood and loomed over the table. "Ghosts, demons, angels. Whatever. You are either so insane that you appear normal, or you are such good liars that you can give a line like 'an angel rescued me from hell' without missing a beat or losing that sincere look. Whatever. I wanted a relationship with you boys, I wanted the truth. I wanted to know about my son. But you two are nothing but worthless liars." Andrew kicked back his chair, and the chair fell over at his backward push. Sam opened his mouth to say something, and from storm clouds that were passing over the hazel depths, Dean knew it wasn't going to be something nice or sweet, and Dean put a hand on his brother's chest silencing him.

Andrew was once again headed for the door when Dean called out. "I don't really care if I have a relationship with you or not." Andrew stopped and turned to watch Dean take a drink from his glass never once looking back at Andrew. " I don't really care if I ever see you again. But I do care that you think your son was a saint. I do care that you are trivializing the crap I've lived through. And I do not appreciate how you have treated Bobby's things." Dean finally turned cold green eyes to Andrew. "We're going hunting Saturday morning. That should be all the proof you need. So, if you really do want to get to have a relationship with us, or want to know about your son, I suggest you find your way here, bag packed, by 5 AM."

"Dean…it's too dangerous for him to come. He doesn't know what's out there."

"That's his problem. He wants the truth. I can't think of any other way of showing him the truth…can you?"

Sam shook his head in response. Dean turned his focus back to the man at the door. "So, come or don't come. I really don't give a damn. Just know, if I don't see you at 5 AM Saturday morning, I never want to see or hear from you again." Dean slammed his glass down on the table and with angry tension thrumming through his body strode out of the kitchen. Andrew looked at Sam and Sam simply affirmed his brother's stance and followed Dean out of the room.

"Now. If you wouldn't mind leaving, I'd be grateful." Bobby said with a sarcastic smile and false hospitality. Andrew had no other choice but to leave.


	17. Chapter 17

AN: I want to thank you guys so much for the wonderful reviews, I love each and every one of them. I am so sorry for taking so long in between chapters. Grading essays (65 of them) has kicked my butt). Enjoy!

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><p>"You think he'll come?" Sam asked as he turned off the light in the bathroom.<p>

"Doubt it." Dean said with a shrug. "He's already decided that we're nuts."

Sam nodded, pushed hair out of his eyes, and put his shaving kit into his duffel. Dean watched Sam out of the corner of his eye, and all of those years together, all of those years being in each other's pockets told Dean everything, "You're disappointed aren't you?"

"No." Sam said quickly. Too quickly for it to be the truth.

"We don't need him slowing us down anyway." Dean said gruffly and stuffed the last of his jeans inside his own duffel.

Sam jerked the zipper on his bag closed and he sighed. "I just…just…I just wanted…" Sam struggled to find the words and despite the mind that was akin to a steal trap and was filled with all kinds of words, he was unable to come up with one single word that seemed to articulate what he was feeling.

But it didn't matter, Dean understood. "You wanted something normal."

"I've given up normal." Sam said. "I suffer from Post Hell Syndrome…I'll never have any kind of normal," Sam gave a small tight smile. "And I don't need it."

"That's the biggest load of bull shit I've ever heard come out of your mouth. And I've heard some royal bull shit come out of your cake hole before. You want something that is normal. It's not something to be ashamed of. You can want what you want. But Grandpa Winchester is a dick."

"That's what you said about angels."

"And I was right." Sam raised an eyebrow and nodded. "So, trust me, when I say that Grandpa Winchester was going to give us nothing but grief. Even if he did come with us on this hunting trip, it isn't like he is going to have some grand revelation, hug us, and go buy bumper stickers that say 'my grandsons can kick your grandson's ass' or anything like that. He'll look at us like we're freaks, or worse, he'll fall into the life, he'll become a version of dad…and then he's no longer normal. He's one of us. And we are most certainly not normal."

Sam nodded and threw his duffel bag on his shoulder. Dean mirrored the movement and they walked in tandem down the stairs into the kitchen.

"You boys sure you are up for this?" Bobby asked trying to keep the worry out of his voice.

"I need to get back on the horse." Sam said. Dean snickered.

"As long as it isn't a real horse."

"You aren't ever going to let that go are you?"

"You didn't get to see you trying to ride that horse."

"That's enough." Bobby said with mock exasperation. "You boys have everything."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yes daddy, we have our homework and lunches. I promise I won't let Sammy get beat up."

Bobby scowled. "Get the hell out of here you idjit." Dean grinned. They headed for the door, car keys in hand and Dean virtually ran straight into Andrew Winchester.

Hard lines replaced the soft warm expression on Dean's face; all humor that had been in the air evaporated and left tension in its wake. "So you decided to show up?" Dean asked keeping his voice even.

"You boys said if I wanted to know you boys or anything about my son, I'd better be here at 5 AM with my bags packed. And I'm here, and I want to at least try." Dean didn't trust the older man, didn't believe that he had pure intentions, but the conversation with Sammy in the bedroom weighed on Dean's mind and he nodded.

"Gonna have to bring your own ride, you aren't with us, not enough room."

"Dean.." Sam started to protest, Dean gave his brother a look and Sam's mouth shut.

"I do."

"Good. Chevy Impala black, that's ours. You can follow."

"Where are we going?"

"North Dakota." Dean said, nodded a good bye at Bobby, and was first out of the door, followed by Sam, and then Andrew.

"What are we looking for?" Andrew asked as he walked double his normal speed trying to keep up with the pace that Dean had set.

"We think a ghost." Sam supplied

"Ghost." Andrew mumbled in disbelief.

Dean stopped suddenly, Sam nearly ran smack into his brother's tension taut back. Dean made angry eye contact with Andrew. "Yes. If you want off of the crazy train, now's the time to do it." Dean said glaring at the elderly man.

"No. No. I'll be right behind you." Andrew said quickly sensing that any hesitation on his part and Dean would give him one option-to leave, and to leave quickly.

"Hope you can keep up." Dean said as he unceremoniously threw his duffel into the back seat.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

They rolled into a no tell Motel named "Dusty Motel" Dean cut the engine and got out of the car, it didn't take too long for Andrew to catch up. "Why didn't we stay at the hotel inside of town?"

"When you are on a hunt you lay low, you stay away from the normal folk. People at places like this don't ask questions. They just take your money and hand you the keys. Watch and learn."

Dean opened the door and inside sat a man who looked like he might have been trapped in some kind of horrible Quentin Terrintino 70s flashback film. Dean didn't hesitate, didn't even blink, he just went up to the guy and said "I need a room with two double beds."

"Cash or credit." The guy at the counter asked without even looking up from the magazine (which Dean suspected might be porn).

"Credit." Dean said and reached into his back pocket and pulled out the credit card and flung it on the counter. 70s guy took it ran it through the machine without even looking at the card, shoved the guest register in front of Dean and Dean signed with a rock star name, took his credit card, and his key and left.

Sam and Dean were standing in front of the Impala, duffels on their shoulders waiting when Andrew came out of the office. "You didn't sign your own name." Andrew accused.

"Nope. Never will. Can't let normal know who we really are." Dean said and started for the room that was theirs.

"Why?"

"Because if they find us, they'll lock us up in jail or worse, the mental hospital." Sam said as he continued to follow his brother. "We've done both and we don't care to do it again."

"Get in there, drop your crap, do what you gotta do, and get your ass out here, we've got work to do." Dean said harshly as he unlocked the door to their room.

"Now? We're going to look now after a seven hour drive?"

"Ghosts are most active at night. When the sun goes down in our profession, the party is just getting started. So unless you aren't up to it, get your ass back out here in ten minutes."

Both boys disappeared in the room, and Andrew stood there gaping at the shut door.


	18. Chapter 18

AN: I am so sorry that it has taken me so long to get this updated...I've rewritten it three times. I hope you enjoy. I rushed to get this to you guys so it hasn't been propperly edited. And as always, thank you so very very much for your kind words about my work! Stacey

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Both boys had to blink when they entered the room. It had been quite a while since they had been in one so ghastly. They had been in some doozies in their time; from disco balls hanging from the ceiling, to a stripper pole in the center of the room with condoms being furnished instead of coffee, to rooms that looked as if a child on a sugar high had furnished them. So, their bar for garish was pretty damn high and this particular primary color disaster was doing a high jump over the bar. The blindingly bright yellow and blue walls were so bright that Dean had to look away from them before his retinas became permanently damaged, and when he looked down at the carpet to get away from the blinding color he found that he was standing on equally bright green carpet.

"Wow." Dean said closing his eyes for a moment trying to get his vision back to rights. Risking his eyesight Dean opened his eyes and went to the bed closest to the door and put his things down on it. "Wow, blue, yellow, green, it's like a Crayola box exploded in here." Dean said as he unzipped his bag. Dean gave a small chuckle low in his throat. "I bet Andrew is loving this one." Dean laughed again. "But he wanted the whole enchilada didn't he? Wanted us to prove it to him. Well this is most definitely part of the gig." Dean pulled his dress clothes from the bag, FBI Agent Townsend needed to make an appearance and visit the last victim's husband and question him about what exactly happened to his wife. He pulled his tie out of the bag and turned to Sam to ask something, but was stopped dead in his tracks by the vacant look in Sam's eyes.

"Damnit!" Dean cursed himself and crossed the ten feet of space separating them in a mere second. He grabbed Sam's arm trying to ground his little brother in reality, a reality that at times Sam was unsure of, was unsure of because the hallucinations, the mental vacations back into the hotbox made him doubt Sam's truths. Doubt what was reality, doubt himself, doubt his brother, doubt Bobby, hell even doubt the car. Satan had done a number to his soul.

Sam didn't make a movement, hell when this happened to him, when Hell literally took over his mind, Dean had a hard time bringing his brother out of it, and since it happened so infrequently anymore it was as if when it did manage to overtake his willful brother that it put its hooks more solidly inside of Sam's mind and it was harder than it ever was before to break Sam out of that cycle. Hell had taken over Sam's mind again, and the fact that Dean couldn't do anything about it angered Dean more than any other thing in his life.

Dean pushed Sam's sleeve up and grabbed a hold of bare skin. "Sammy. Sammy. I'm right here." Dean said and stood right beside his brother. He pushed hair from his brother's face and eyes and talked to him, slowly, deliberately, softly, calmly. "Come on Sammy we need you to sit down." He tried to pull Sam towards the bed, but his body remained frozen to that spot, Dean closed his eyes and cursed. He was never going to get Sam to move, there was no way in hell he would be able to move that freakishly large body and maneuver it so it was sitting on a bed. Dean hung his head in wariness and reluctantly left his brother's side and returned with a wet wash cloth and started wiping his brother's forehead, trying to stimulate his body into shaking his mind free. Once in a while it worked, and Dean hoped that this one time it would work.

There was a knock on the door, and Dean ignored it, focusing on his little brother. Focusing all of his energies on returning Sam back to where he belonged—in the real world with Dean.

The knock came more insistent the second time, and Dean still continued to ignore it, but when the knock turned into a pounding and a demanding from Andrew to open the "God damn door", Dean's anger took hold of him and he yelled "Open it yourself!" And made a conscious effort to slow his breathing and continue to talk Sam down, continued to try and talk Sam back into reality.

Andrew, who was more adept at the less savory arts managed to get the door opened with a credit card and skill, yelled "How dare you order me around and demand that I be out there-" Andrew stopped when he saw Dean holding onto his brother's arm and wiping the drool away from his brother's mouth as Sam stood statuesque, panic flashing in his eyes, stress lines on the younger man's face.

"What happened?"

"Hell happened." Dean said flatly and continued his ministrations to his brother.

"We need to get him onto the bed." Andrew said.

"You ever tried to manhandle a redwood?" Dean asked sarcastically.

Andrew chose to ignore the comment. "Let me help." Andrew said.

"Yeah, like you tried to help the last time by getting Sam committed to the loony farm? I think I'll pass on your kind of help." Andrew sighed and closed his eyes. Dealing with Dean was akin to dealing with a brick wall-it just didn't happen. Dean was as stubborn as John ever was, however, unlike John had been, Dean seemed more unwilling to forgive for any transgression against his family.

"I'm sorry about that."

"Yeah whatever." Dean said and continued to talk softly to his brother.

"Let me help him get into a bed. He'll be sore from all of that rigidness. And for a man his height….it isn't good."

"What?" Dean asked turning to Andrew for the first time. "What do you mean for a man of his height?"

"He's tall, really tall, and men that are built like him…like the people on my side of the family, it doesn't take much to throw out their back. We don't want Sam in pain." Andrew reasoned sensing that if he suggested something that would help Sam feel better, that maybe Dean would be more likely to listen and more likely to comply. Dean's eyes flicked from Sam's stressed face to Andrew's pleading one. Sam had thrown his back out most of his adult life. Sam had always had a hard time standing in one place for long periods of time. Dean knew this. Knew that it was best to get Sam flat, knew that it was best to get him off of his feet, but before he hadn't been able to do it by himself, and now, was he willing to risk Sam's comfort just because he didn't like their grandfather?

"Okay. Help me get him to the bed."

Andrew nodded, making sure to school his face into neutral lines, lines that in no way could be interpreted as winning the battle, Andrew sensed that if he even hinted that he felt victorious, that Dean would shut him out, send him packing, and tell him never to darken his door again, and this time he would mean it. And he had made a decision to learn what he could about his grandsons even if they were nutcases and only THOUGHT they saw ghosts and only THOUGHT they were fighting them. He wanted to know for certain. And Dean and Andrew slowly and deliberately hooked their arms under Sam's and drug him as gently as possible to the bed, and arranged his long limbs on the bed as best as they could.

"Thanks." Dean mumbled and sat on the bed next to Sam and continued to wipe his brother's face with the towel. Andrew nodded.

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They didn't get to go out and canvas the area, instead Dean sat by Sam's beside for hours, talking to his brother, reassuring him, wiping his forehead with continuously damp towels courtesy of Andrew.

The moon was up, drifting out of sight just as the pinks and oranges of dawn were coming up over the horizon, and that was when Sam took a big gasping breath, blinked eyes that hadn't blinked in hours, eyes that Dean had put drops in to keep them moist, and looked around.

"How long?" Sam asked after getting his breath.

"9 hours." Dean supplied. Sam sat up and rubbed his gritty eyes and saw Andrew sitting in the chair across from the bed.

"You okay son?" he asked gruffly.

Sam nodded. "The case." Sam croaked out.

"Case can wait." Dean said and stood up, stretching his back allowing the bones to click back into their correct spots.

"But people are dying."

"And my brother just battled hell. The case can wait one more day."

"No. No." Sam said and tried to stand. Dean put a hand against his brother's chest.

"No. You are staying right here. You are going to get some sleep. Going to get some food inside of you. That is priority one."

"People are dying."

"And you were just in Hell for 9 hours." Dean said hotly. "For once let's just take care of us first." Dean made an effort to calm himself. "Please Sam. Please."

Sam backed down. "I'll sleep for a couple of hours, then we are out of here by 3. We have work to do. We need to make sure that no one else has died."

"How do we do that?" Andrew asked.

"Go get a newspaper." Dean said. Andrew stood, glad to finally be of use.

"Which one?"

"Local." Andrew nodded. "Be back soon." And he was gone.

"You sleep Sam."

Sam nodded. "Don't go far." He said worriedly. Dean saw the tears in his brother's eyes and nodded. He sat back down on the bed beside his brother. Hell had wrung Sam pretty raw, Sam's formidable shoulders were hunched and shaking. Dean bit the inside of his cheek, if he could get his hands on Satan, Satan wouldn't stand a chance.


	19. Chapter 19

Andrew returned a short time later carrying a multitude of newspapers. Dean arched an eyebrow, "You mug a newspaper boy?"

"I bought every paper they had."

"We only need local." Andrew sighed and put down the collection of news on the small table that was supposed to pass for a place where more than one average person could sit, but in actuality could barely hold a laptop and a coffee cup.

"I didn't know what we needed."

"That's not true." Dean said in a tightly controlled voice. "I told you before you left that we only needed the local paper. You either weren't listening or you thought you knew better than I did, and dude, you may know a lot of things, but I can guarantee you that I know more about hunting than you could ever think of forgetting. So, when I tell you what to do, you better do it and do it right."

"Dean." Sam sighed softly. "He was just trying to help." 

"Great…see you woke him up." Dean growled.

Sam sat up. "You woke me up Dean." Sam said pointedly and sat up slowly, resting his upper body against the head board. Sam looked at Dean, and true to form, Dean didn't back down nor did he apologize for his behavior he just clenched his teeth tight enough that the muscle in his jaw jumped.

Sam got up and went to the table and sifted through the material. He picked up a local paper, and Dean got up and turned on the laptop that was sitting on the other bed. Andrew watched the two men with interest. Neither spoke, nor did they have to, they were perfectly in sync, and after a minute or two Sam said "damnit."

"Someone else?"

"Yeah." Sam threw the paper down and went into the bathroom slamming the door behind him. Dean stood and picked up the paper that Sam had just unceremoniously discarded and read the article quickly.

"Damnit." Dean echoed.

"What?" Andrew asked.

"Got a kid this time." Dean ran a hand down his mouth, anger and frustration warring in his brain.

"You sure it was the thing you're hunting?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." Dean said with a sigh.

"You're absolutely sure? There are lots of people, parents even, nowadays that kill kids."

"It's our ghost."

"How…"

"Because I know!" Dean exploded. His voice echoed off the thin walls of the motel room, and someone knocked against it and yelled at him to be quiet. Dean put his hands on his hips and hung his head. Dean bit his lip and forced himself to calm down. "I know because it follows the pattern of the other killings."

"Ghosts follow patterns?" Andrew asked.

"Some do."

"What's the pattern?"

"It's going through a certain type of people. All girls, ages ranging from 7 to 20. This is a pretty damn small community so it could be any number of reasons. That's what we have to figure out."

The bathroom door opened and Sam exited, pale, and face tight. "Sammy….you okay?" Dean asked cautiously.

"Fine. We have to find this ghost Dean."

"Sammy, you aren't at peak performance…this can wait…"

"People are dying Dean!"

"People are always dying. We can't save them all."

Sam chuffed and licked his lips. "I recall a time when said it was our job to save people."

Dean ran a hand down the length of his face. "That was when neither one of us had been to hell. Back then neither one of us was having 9 hour space outs.."

"I'm fine Dean."

"Like hell you are!" Dean exploded. "You aren't thinking straight. I can't have you at my back when you aren't all here."

Sam's eyes grew angry. "You don't want me at your back?"

"That's not what I said."

"What are you saying then?"

"I'm saying that your health, both mental and physical are what is most important right now."

"I'm fine." Sam repeated.

"Your brother has a valid point Sam." Andrew said softly from behind Dean. "You were in some pretty rough shape. You didn't get but maybe two hours of real sleep."

Sam straightened up to his full height and looked his brother in the eye. "The girl was a child. She was how old?"

"Sammy…" Dean sighed.

"How old?"

"7." Dean reluctantly supplied.

"And you can live with another 7 year old dying tonight because I haven't had a full eight hours of sleep? I know I can't." Dean closed his eyes and shook his head.

"No. No. I can't let another little girl die."

"I didn't think so. Now. Let's get this party started."

Andrew stood there stunned as the two men, who were heatedly, angrily, bitterly fighting moments ago, move in sync to their respective beds and retrieve the clothing needed.

"We're going to pose as FBI agents." Sam supplied to Andrew. "I suggest you get a suit on."

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

"So we will just walk up to the door as bold as you please, announce that we are insurance agents and ask her what exactly?" Andrew asked as they pulled up to a perfectly innocent suburban house.

"Just follow along." Dean said and pulled the keys from the ignition. All three stepped out of the car and onto the driveway, Andrew was hesitant, his morality offended by lie.

Dean knocked on the door and a tall woman opened the door, tears flowed freely down a face that had most likely looked young a couple of days ago, before her 7 year old daughter had died, but now looked tired, sad, and older.

"Can I help you?" she asked shakily. Andrew wanted to apologize, tell her they had the wrong house and tuck tail and run. Couldn't Sam or Dean see how distraught the woman was? Couldn't they see that she was in no shape to deal with their questions?

"Yes, are you Tessa Lunstrum?"

"Yes."

"My name is Dean Taylor, and these are my partners Sam Evans, and Andrew Wheeler, FBI." Sam and Dean fished out their fake FBI badges and showed them to Tessa. "We just want to ask you a few questions."

She nodded, sniffed hard, wiped her eyes with a tissue that was produced seemingly from nowhere, and she ushered the three men into her home. She escorted them to the dining room table and they all took a seat.

"Could you please tell us what happened?" Dean asked taking point.

"The police asked me already. What more can I tell you?"

"Could you just tell us again please." Sam asked. "I know it is difficult, and I can't even begin to understand your pain, but please just start at the beginning."

She did. She explained to them that she and her daughter had been in the living room, Lilly doing homework, and Tessa reading a book, when it felt like the heat just stopped and like the cold was seeping into every poor in her body. So she left the room and went to the thermostat, which reported that the house was at the temperature it should have been, she turned it up anyway and went back to the living room. Lilly was nowhere to be seen. She called for her, looked for her and couldn't find her. She was passing through the kitchen for the third or fourth time when she noted that the door to the basement was slightly ajar. She opened it, turned on the light at the top of the stairs and she looked down and she saw her daughter, at the bottom of the stairs, not moving. She had fallen. Tessa never heard her fall, never heard her scream. She was just lying there at the bottom of the stairs, and her neck was twisted around.

Sam gave her a compassionate smile and thanked her for her cooperation. They left the woman slightly more haggard than they had found her.

The doors to the Impala had barely shut before Andrew laid into them. "How can you boys do that?"

"We needed to know." Dean said.

"But you lied to her. Told her that we were FBI agents."

"We can't go in there and say 'Hey, we think your kid might have been killed by a psych ghost, will you tell us what you saw'."

"But to lie like that. Don't you even feel bad?" Andrew asked, a hint of disgust in his voice.

"Doesn't matter." Dean said. "We have to find the fugly bastard and kill it before it kills anyone else's little girl." Dean said with a hard edge to his voice.

"You are truly heartless." Andrew breathed.


	20. Chapter 20

Sam watched as the muscle in Dean's jaw jumped. Andrew's comment was insulting…the man had no idea what in the blue blazes he was talking about. If posing as an FBI agent was the only way to get information so another young girl wouldn't be killed, then it was worth it. Lives were worth more than conventional laws and social norms. Sam had hoped that by watching them work that Andrew would understand, but after that comment Sam wasn't so sure. Maybe Dean had been right. Sam suppressed a sigh.

"Where are we going now?" Andrew complained. "We going somewhere else where you boys are going to lie to another mother who is in pain because her daughter is dead?"

"Yes. Actually we are." Dean snarkily shot back. "We need to figure out a pattern, we need to assess why a ghost would chose not to go after a bunch of little girls who hadn't lived long enough to do anything bad enough to warrant getting killed."

"So you are going to go open up more wounds." Andrew chuffed.

"If we have to bring someone's grief to the surface in order to save lives, then it's worth it." Sam started patiently. "Because, I'm sure if these parents were in any state of mind to accept the truth, they would be more than willing to do anything to help someone else not feel the pain that they are feeling right now." Sam said with an undertone of heat to h is otherwise calm words. Dean glanced over at his brother and caught his eye. He nodded to Sam, giving him the Winchester version of a thumbs up. Inside Sam smiled, it had been a while since he had felt the approval of his brother, it was a good thing.

"If that's what you boys tell yourselves to make you sleep easier at night, whatever."

Dean gripped the steering wheel tight enough for his knuckles to go white, and Sam closed his eyes and counted to ten.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Dusk was falling over the town as Sam, Dean and Andrew were leaving the home of the last victim.

"What do you think Sam?" Dean asked as they approached the door.

"I think the ghost is following these kids home from somewhere."

"How?"

"I don't know, maybe they all touch something, or maybe it's like Dirk's ghost from Truman. Maybe this ghost is simply attaching itself to its victims."

"Okay." Dean said and opened the driver's side door. Sam did likewise on his side of the car, and Andrew hustled to keep up. Ever since the conversation after the first home the boys had essentially ignored him and forced him to fight to keep up with their much younger legs. He was barely in the car before Dean sped off.

"So, if the ghost is attaching itself to these kids, where do you think it's coming in contact with them? School?"

"Not all of them go to the same school. Kelcy and Amy both went to Anderson Elementary, but Julia and Portia both went to the middle school. So there isn't a connection there." 

"Then where else did they all come together?"

"Well, Julia's mother said that she spent a good portion of her time at Miss Laura's dance school, said that she practiced there almost every single day. That she wanted to get into the school for the arts next year instead of going to the regular high school." Dean thought for a moment and then he snapped his fingers.

"Amy's mom had a picture of Amy on the mantle of her in a dance costume thing. Think they both could have gone to the same dance studio?"

"It's a possibility."

"Think we should swing by the dance studio and see what we can see?"

Sam looked at his watch. "Let's wait until tonight, run the EMF meter and see if we can get a hit."

"Won't the studio be closed after dark?" Andrew asked, his voice slightly husky from exhaustion, frustration, and lack of use.

"Yes." Dean said simply.

"Then how do you intend to get inside?" Andrew asked. Neither Sam nor Dean spoke up. Andrew's moth fell open. "You're going to BREAK in?"

"We aren't going to steal anything." Dean said.

"But you are going to break into a dance studio? My God. My son most certainly didn't teach you two to break and enter."

"Actually, he gave me my first set of lock picks for my 10th birthday." Sam said. Andrew sputtered, and Sam and Dean both couldn't hide their smiles.

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Andrew only got back in the car after a two hour nap and some food because he told himself that he was going to see this thing through. It was two AM when Dean came pounding on his door with the not so pleasant greeting of "get your ass out here old man we are about to leave. Chop Chop." That boy was arrogant, condescending, and an ass hole, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why anyone would willingly put themselves in his care for any extended period of time. He started to amend that statement as thoughts of Sam being comatose for 9 hours and Dean caring for him like he was his own child, when Dean pounded on the door again and yelled "Old man! Hurry up!" And he went back to his previous thought: Dean Winchester was a disgrace to the Winchester name.

Once inside the car, angry and grumpy, the boys who seemed no worse for wear after being awake for over 12 hours chatted amicably in the front seat regarding the best method for breaking into the dance studio. They talked in half sentences and metaphors that Andrew didn't understand. It was like trying to break a code that he didn't have the cipher for and Andrew tucked that into the "resentment" folder that this trip had made thick.

The dance studio came into view and Dean cut the headlights and allowed the big black beast to coast into the back. He put the car in park, Sam got out ahead of him and went for the door lock pick set and penlight at the ready. Dean went to the trunk, opened it, opened a secret compartment, came out with two funky looking devices and a couple of guns, put gun into the waist band of his jeans, and threw a sawed off shot gun at Andrew, and walked past.

Sam had the door open, and both men flicked on flashlights and Dean handed Sam one of the weird contraptions and both separated paying close attention to what the device in their hands said.

He chose to follow Sam figuring that the younger of the two was less likely to take his gun out of his pants and shoot him dead. Sam ignored him and continued to search the area. The studio had looked small from the outside, but it proved to be a small maze of rooms large enough to hold several people. They continued to walk slowly through the maze, Sam pointing his little device in all directions searching for something. Andrew was about to ask what exactly Sam was expecting to see on the display screen when the machine in his hand went off, squealing like a pig stuck with a knife.

Sam looked up, and as if by magic Dean was at his side, his machine too was squealing. "There is some serious EMF in this room." Sam said as he pointed towards the room that held a mirrored wall and a ballet bar. Dean nodded and the three of them headed towards the room. The closer they got to the door the louder the machines, until finally both hunters turned off the devices and put their machines into pockets and pulled out their guns. Dean cocked the sawed off shot gun.

"Come out come out wherever you are." Dean taunted. Andrew felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, his heart began to race and he couldn't figure out why. The temperature in the room dropped, and he could see is breath, and then in the corner, by the bar, a little girl in a ballet costume stood, a cold anger radiating all around her.

"They don't deserve it. I deserve it! It's mine! Mine!" With the last word both boys were flung against the building's support wall. Dean regained his awareness first and shot her with the gun, rock salt exploded from the muzzle, the ghost screamed and vanished.

"Let's get the hell out of here before she comes back." Dean said , pulling Sam up from the floor.

"Agreed. Come on!" Sam said to Andrew and the three of them ran as fast as they could out of the studio and to the car. Three doors slammed.

"I think she's pissed." Dean said slightly winded.

"You think Dean?" Sam asked sarcastically.

"Who the hell was she?" Dean asked.

"I don't know. Guess we need to do more research."

"I was afraid you'd say that." Dean said with a sigh. Dean brought the old car to life and squealed tires on their way out of the dark parking lot. "That, Andrew, was a ghost. It real enough for you?" Dean asked with a sarcastic smirk.


	21. Chapter 21

Dean drove hurriedly back to the motel, and Andrew sat in the back seat, stunned, scared, and in denial. There was no way in the world that what he saw was real. No way in the world that he had seen a little girl with a pink ballet ensemble on, hair pulled back in a pink ribbon, with skin so pale that it shone like moonlight. No. Sam and Dean were pulling something over on him. They had to have something hooked up, something that projected the image, a recorder of some kind that gave a voice to the projection. No. Everything could be explained. There was no way in the world that what he saw could even be close to true.

"So how did you guys do it?"

"Do what?" Sam asked glancing away from the window.

"How did you get that projection of the girl?" Dean sighed loudly and shook his head.

"Dude, seriously? You're still not believing that we just tangled with a ghost?"

"With technology now a days…"

"Don't. Just save it. I don't want to hear it. I don't know what else we have to do to prove to you that ghost and monsters are real."

Andrew crossed his arms and sighed. "This is ridiculous."

"I second that."

They ended back up at the motel. Sam said goodnight to the elderly man and Dean just grabbed his duffel bag and walked by him without so much as a "fuck off old man". The door slammed shut behind Dean and Andrew went to his own room, determined that after a good night's sleep he was going to get his ass back in his car and skip out on the two crazy men who shared a family name.

SNSNSNSNSNS

He didn't get a chance to skip out on Sam and Dean. Dean was at his door the following morning before the sun came up, and greeted him with a simple, "get your ass in the car, we've got interviews to do." Turned and started walking away.

"No. I'm not getting back on the crazy bus. I'm not doing this anymore." Dean swung around and glared.

"Oh yes you are old man. You are not going to do a hunt half assed. You wanted to see how this was done, and then you accused me and Sam of trying to pull the wool over your eyes. You don't get to keep saying things like that to me. You are going to get in there and get a shower, you are going to be out here and dressed in a half an hour." Andrew stood up a little straighter and tried not to respond with a "Yes sir." Basic training was the last time he had been dressed down like that, and the fact that he had just been dressed down by his much younger grandson was…annoying. But nevertheless he found himself closing the door and heading for the shower, he couldn't understand why, maybe it was morbid curiosity, maybe it was for his wife who had wanted to know her grandsons, or maybe, just maybe he had spent some serious time last night thinking about what he saw last night in the dance studio, and found himself believing if even just a little bit.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

They arrived at the dance studio just as the instructor/owner was unlocking her doors. Sam smiled and dug for his FBI badge, introduced himself and said, "I'm so sorry to hear about losing one of your students."

The dance instructor's already red puffy eyes began to spill over with tears. "She's the fifth one in the last year."

"Fifth? We were under the impression that there were only four deaths."

She shook her head and crossed her arms. Sam reached in his breast pocket and pulled a handkerchief seemingly out of nowhere and handed it to the woman. She wiped her eyes and handed it to him, Sam indicated that she should keep it.

"No, Lilly makes five. Lilly and the other three have been within the last six months, but Andrea-Andrea was the first. She died about a year ago, right before a major competition, she was a shoe in. She was so good, so graceful, so beautiful. But she fell down a flight of stairs, and she died. Snapped her neck. All of that talent…that little spirit was just gone."

"Is that a yearly competition?" Dean asked.

"Yes. All of the girls who just passed were entered in it for various kinds of dancing. I'm not sure what to do. Emily is the only one left. I don't know if I want her to go. It feels cursed."

Sam and Dean finished up with the woman and headed back to the car.

"What do we do now?" Andrew asked.

"We protect the kid, and we dig up the bones and salt and burn them. Can't have this little girl after anyone else."

"Dig up the body?"

"Yeah."

"Then you salt and burn it?"

"Yeah." Dean said nonchalantly and headed down the road.

"This doesn't seem wrong to you?"

"Nope." Sam said and looked at Dean. "Rock paper scissors for who has to dig?"

"Flip a coin."

"You always win the coin toss." Sam borderline whined.

"You always win rock paper scissors." Dean countered.

While the two of them argued about the method in which they would chose who would have to get dirty, Andrew sat back in his seat still taken aback by the whole idea of digging up a body.


	22. Chapter 22

Dean lost the rock paper scissors game, and he was the one who had to dig up the body, and Dean also lost the coin toss and was stuck with Andrew, Sam dropped them off at the cemetery and hurried off to keep the little dancer from being killed by the whack a do spirit.

"We're seriously going to dig up a grave?" Andrew asked after they had checked the fourth row of graves for the wanna be dance star's name.

"Well, hell, it took you four rows before you said something. Was expecting it to be like ten steps inside." Dean said from in front of his grandfather.

"You are a wise ass you know that?"

"Yup." Dean answered. Andrew could feel his blood beginning to boil. He wanted to reach up and strangle the younger man, beat him senseless, something, anything to make the younger man show some respect, to speak when spoken to, and answer the questions laid out before him.

"Why your daddy didn't beat the smart ass out of you is a question only God can answer."

"God ain't answering anyone with the last name of Winchester. Just sayin'." Dean said evenly.

"You have an answer for everything?"

"Yup."

"How does Sam stand you?"

"Practice."

Andrew was about to let out some hot and sharp comment when Dean stopped dead in his tracks causing Andrew to almost run smack into the young man's back.

"Here she is." Dean said. He threw the pack he had been carrying onto the ground beside the headstone and dug his shovel in. Andrew stood there in shock. Dean didn't even look like the idea of digging someone up was disturbing, and judging by the way he laid into the shovel, this wasn't his first grave.

"What? You gonna just stand there and watch me do this?" Dean asked pausing in his work. "I know you're old and all, but you can still dig." Dean went back to shoveling. "Trust me I know from experience." Dean mumbled to the ground.

"But this is someone's daughter."

"Someone's dead daughter whom is taking her death out on other people's live little girls."

"But what if someone sees us?"

"We feed 'em a story, or we knock them out until we're done."

"You've done this before." Dean paused in his work again to look at the old man.

"I've been doing this since before junior high. I know how to dig a grave and salt and burn the body. Dad taught me. It saves lives. So either put your shoulder into it, or get the hell out and back to the car and sit there like a five year old little girl who's afraid to do what needs to be done, and who's afraid to get her hands dirty." There was a heat behind those words that burned. Andrew narrowed his eyes at his grandson, picked up his shovel and began digging.

Andrew and Dean proved their similarity with regards to competition as they dug, for every shovel full one threw out the other had to throw two, it made the process move more quickly but it made the work harder, and Dean's muscles, who had long since grown used to running from angels and other more corporeal monsters, ached with the effort of throwing shovels full of dirt over the edge of a six foot hole.

They hit coffin, and just as they did, Dean's cell phone rang, he answered. Sam was on the other end urging Dean to hurry his digging, the spirit was there, and it was a little more than complicated to keep the little girl the spirit was after safe.

Dean didn't explain to Andrew, he simply cracked open the coffin revealed the girl inside, and got the hell out of the hole, reached a hand down and helped Andrew out as well. Dean reached in his bag and took out the salt, poured it over the corpse, and just as soon as he reached for the lighter fluid the ghost appeared behind Andrew, and Dean only had a split second to react, he dashed over to Andrew and threw him out of the way just as the spirit wound up and exerted it's force over the mortal world and sent Dean flying through the air and hitting his back, hard, against a rather unforgiving tombstone. 

Andrew watched his grandson's body fly through the air, saw him connect with the stone, and panic flew through his veins. The ghost moved slowly and steadily towards Dean, yelling about some damn trophy, some stupid competition, and as soon as Dean could catch his breath again, just as the ghost was within killing distance, he yelled "SET HER ON FIRE!" Andrew reacted quickly, lighter fluid and lighter in quick succession, and the body began to slowly catch fire. Andrew looked back over to Dean, Andrew saw that the ghost had Dean by the throat, his feet dangling from the ground and Dean's eyes slowly rolling back into his head, lack of air causing his body to go limp. And just as soon as Andrew was about to pick up the shot gun, he heard a woosh from behind, the bulk of the corpse catching fire, and then the spirit screaming and flaming out. Dean fell to the ground into a boneless heap.

Andrew hurried to his grandson's side. He was breathing, but he was unconscious. Andrew fumbled for Dean's cell phone and pressed the button and Sam's harried voice answered.

"Dean?"

"It's Andrew."

"Where's Dean?" There was an edge of panic to the voice.

"He's unconscious. The spirit threw him against a stone and then tried to choke him."

"She's gone?"

"Went up in flames."

"Good. I'll be there." The phone clicked off. Andrew looked down into Dean's slack face and for the first time he saw his son in the young man's features. And for the first time he saw Dean for who he truly was…a hero.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Sam arrived in a car that most certainly wasn't theirs and ran to them, he was on the ground with Dean who had just regained consciousness a second or two before Sam slid to a stop next to Dean.

"You okay Dean?"

"Fine. Stupid girl tried to choke me to death." Dean smiled. "Guess she thought I was hot and wanted me to share the afterlife with her." He joked and tried to sit up and had a difficult time making the world stop spinning. He grabbed a hold of Sam's jacket and steadied himself.

"Let's get you into the car and get you back to the motel." Sam nodded to Andrew and Andrew put an arm underneath one side of Dean and Sam did likewise on the other side of his brother and they lifted Dean to his unsteady feet.

"I bet I get some pretty bruises this time." Dean smirked.

Once at the motel Sam stripped Dean's outer layers off and checked his back, felt each rib, felt each section of vertebra for damage, and when he was certain nothing was damaged other than muscle and skin, he gave his brother something to drink and put him to bed with the words "you know the drill."

To which Dean replied. "Yes mom."

Andrew looked to Sam and said, "You two weren't lying. You really do fight ghosts."

"Yes we do."

"How?"

"A demon killed mom. Dad learned how to take care of it, and we learned from him. Now we keep as many people from hurting as we can."

"But how often does this happen?" Andrew made a gesture towards Dean.

"Just about every time. However, I'm usually the one getting choked. Dean getting choked is pretty rare even by our standards."

"Why do you do it?"

Sam shrugged. "I used to do it out of vengeance, for revenge. But now." Sam thought about everything that had happened in the last several years. "Now. Now I do it because people need to be able to live their normal apple pie lives and not worry about whether or not a monster is going to come in the middle of the night and try to eat them."

Andrew rubbed a hand down his face. "This is a lot to process." He sighed.

Sam nodded. "It is."

"Is he going to be okay?"

Sam nodded. "I'll wake him up every so often and make sure he's okay. He'll be sore, but otherwise he'll be fine." Sam opened his lap top and took a seat at the little table in the center of the room. "You can go back to your room, get some sleep, he'll want to be out of here as soon as he can walk without the world spinning."

Andrew nodded. "Goodnight Sam. If you need help with him…." Sam smiled.

"I've done this most of my life. I'll be fine. Thank you though." Andrew nodded and went to his room, knowing full well that sleep wasn't in the cards.


	23. Chapter 23

AN: There will only be a short epilogue after this chapter. Thank you so much for reading this story. Also, thank you so so so so so so much for all of the reviews.

They arrived back at Bobby's the next afternoon, at Dean's insistence. Bobby flitted and clucked over the bruises on Dean's body and took him to the couch and laid him down and went to the kitchen to rustle up something for him to eat.

Andrew came in the living room, took a chair in front of Bobby's desk and put his face in his hands. Sam came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"You've seen more in two days than most people see in a lifetime." Sam said and went and threw a blanket over Dean.

"I'm not an invalid." Dean protested. "It's just a bump on the head."

"Just humor me." Sam said frustrated. Dean gave Sam an evil look and pulled the covers up around his shoulders.

Andrew gave a small smile at watching the two boys work seamlessly together. "So, is this what it's like every time you guys go on a hunt?"

Sam looked down and Dean gave Andrew full eyes. "No. This one was a win. Wins aren't always easy."

"This is a win? You're hurt."

"But no one else died. The girl lived. Her parents never have to know what life would be like without her. And these bumps and bruises aren't anything. I've had broken bones, I've died. I've been shot. A crack to the head means nothing anymore." Sam nodded solemnly.

"I can help."

"No." Both boys said instantaneously.

"But.."

"You need to keep away from this life. You can't contact us anymore either." Sam said regretfully.

"I did this so I could get to know you better."

"And you know what we do. And that's wonderful. And I'm glad you believe us now." Sam said. "But people who know us die. And we can't let one more person in our family die because of us."

Bobby came out of the kitchen with sandwiches and drinks and distributed them. Dean greedily took his and took a big bite out of the sandwich and grinned at Bobby with a mouth full of food. Bobby rolled his eyes and sat down behind his desk.

"But you are all that I have left of my son." Dean nodded and swallowed.

"Likewise. But we can't risk it. Sammy is right."

"I want to be a part of your life."

"It's not possible." Sam said.

"Then what was the point of all of this?" Andrew asked hotly.

"It was to show you your son's legacy." Sam said with a shrug.

"That's bull."

"It's all we can offer." Sam said softly.

"I want to be able to see you."

Sam looked at Dean and sighed. "We both knew that he would want that." Sam said softly.

"We talked about this." Dean added.

"But…"

"It's for the best Sammy."

"You boys will talk to me." Andrew said angrily.

"We can commit to calling once in a while and dropping by your house very rarely. But otherwise, you need to pretend like we don't exist." 

"I can't do that." Andrew said. "You boys can't tell me what I can and can't do."

"Wow. It is a Winchester trait." Bobby mumbled under his breath and pretended to be sorting papers on his desk.

"Yes we can. We know what is best." Dean said. "Listen. Every single person that has ever gotten close to us, known us, wanted to spend any kind of time with us, has died. Jessica, Sam's girlfriend, dead on the ceiling. Dad dead. Ellen and Jo dead dead. Rufus, dead. Cass dead. Pastor Jim dead. Caleb dead. Mom dead. Mom's parents dead. Pamela dead. Gabriel dead. Every single person who has ever tried to be with us, help us, or love us is dead or their memories have been wiped to protect them. Can't do it. We can't give you anything more than what we've just offered." Dean said with heat behind his words.

"Unacceptable."

"It's the only option."

"I don't need my grandson's treating me with kid gloves. I'm not that easy to kill. I've survived war…"

"All of those people I named, most of them, had been hunters most to all of their lives, or were some kind of supernatural entity that thought they would help us out. And they had far more knowledge of what was out there, and they are all dead. DEAD. We couldn't help them, we couldn't save them. What makes you think that you have a better chance of survival?" Dean asked accusatorily.

"I'm a Winchester." Andrew said with a hint of pride.

"And that makes you public enemy number one." Sam said. Sam shook his head. "Andrew, we'd love to have more people in our lives. We don't like it anymore than you do. But right now. Right now, there are things out there that want to take us out, and if they think that taking you out first would get to us and hurt us, then they will do it without hesitation. And honestly, we can't take anymore loss right now. If we lose one more person that we love or respect, then who knows if we will survive it."

"That's the God's honest truth too." Dean said and readjusted on the couch.

"So that's it? I'm going to be locked out of your lives?"

Sam and Dean nodded. "For the most part yeah." Sam said.

"This is such bull shit. I had to jump through all of your hoops, play your games, and now my reward is to be shut out?"

"Take it or leave it. That's all we got." Dean said.

"Such selfish men." Andrew said and got up out of his chair and headed for the door. "Take your sporadic phone calls and shove it up your asses."

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Sam said. Andrew threw open the door and it slammed so hard it bounced open in his wake.


	24. Chapter 24

AN: After you guys read this, I would like to know if you think this should be made into a separate story, or if I should continue with it in this particular story. Thanks! Stacey

AN 2: Thank you to Meggin Lane for the inspiration for this bit!

"So what happened?" Clive asked as he pushed open the door to a hole in the wall establishment.

"They are ungrateful bastards is what happened." Andrew said as they took a seat in the middle of the bar.

"That doesn't answer my question Winchester." Clive said with a sigh and signaled the waitress.

Andrew settled down in his chair, ordered a beer from the young waitress who looked too young to be working much less working at a bar, and clasped his hands together in his lap. "We went hunting." Andrew hedged. He figured it was best to leave out the details that involved ghosts, demons, hell, hallucinations and Lucifer.

"And? Were they intimidated by your great skill and cunning?" Humor sparkled in Andrew's friend's eyes.

"Yeah." Andrew scoffed. "That's it. Of course."

"So you went hunting?"

Two middle aged men sitting at the bar, men trained to listen for things out of the ordinary, men trained to see what other people pretended they didn't see, listened in on the conversation.

"Winchester?" The stockier of the two asked his companion.

"He's talking about the two Winchester boys." The skinner of the two answered and downed his beer.

"The older guy, the one not talking about Sam and Dean." Stocky encouraged.

"Yeah."

"He's referring to the Winchester boys as if they were kin."

"Their kin is all dead."

"But he's talking about them like he's their father."

"John's dead."

"So we thought." Stocky said and surreptitiously looked behind him to get a good look at the man telling the story.

"He looks like John Winchester."

"Could it be their grandfather?" Skinny asked somewhat bewildered at his own question. 

"He's dead."

"You sure?"

"We all know the Winchester family." Skinny nodded. The Winchester clan was well known. Hunters had done their research on the family men who singlehandedly took out some of the nastiest stuff in the business, and also had singlehandedly brought on the apocalypse. There were lots of unsettled scores and people had done their homework to see who they could seek repayment from, and the consensus had been that there was no living relative of John Winchester other than his sons Sam and Dean. "He's dead." The stocky man said with confidence.

"Then who could it be?"

"Maybe John didn't die after all."

"What are you saying Alan?" Alan didn't answer. He pushed his beer from him, got out of his chair and stalked over to the two old men sitting at the table discussing Sam and Dean.

"Winchester?" Stocky asked menacingly.

Andrew looked up at the scary man unfazed. "What?" Andrew asked in a growl. Little did he know that his tone solidified the stocky man's preconceived notions.

"I think you need to come with us."

"Who do you think you are?" Andrew asked.

"I think I'm the man that your family has a debt or two that I would like to collect on." The stocky man got down into Andrew's face and whispered. "You see, John," Andrew's eyes went wide. "Yeah, I know who you are."

"But I'm not John."

"Yeah, right." The stocky man laughed. "You can pretend all you want. It may have fooled a lot of people for a lot of years but it ain't gonna work on me." The stocky man licked his lips. "I see it as you've got two options. You can either come with me quietly, or I can hit you so hard that your ancestors will feel it." Just as an acerbic comment came to his lips the skinny man, also quite ruff around the edges, came closer and stood next to the stocky man. "And I would just love to kick your ass Winchester."

Andrew believed that statement. He got up. He followed the two men out, dropping his cellphone purposefully as he went.


	25. Chapter 25

The first sense that came back to life was his sense of smell. Wherever he was it smelled of water and mildew. He took a deep breath trying to ascertain whether or not he was, in fact, still alive, and the sharp intake of breath burned his lungs and confirmed that he was very much alive.

His ears came back into their auditory focus moments after his sense of smell, and he could hear the two men who had taken him, and apparently knocked him out, over in the corner quietly arguing about something, that something, Andrew assumed was him. Their words were muffled, but the emotions were clear.

It took a moment or two more before he realized that his chin was touching his chest. He commanded the muscles to straighten and they did, under great protest, and the searing pain that coursed through his head once it was upright was enough to make him want to do another round with unconsciousness.

He opened his eyes and the two men finally took notice that their captive was awake and alert.

"What do you want?" Andrew managed through a parched throat.

"You and your sons owe my family a blood debt." The man responded.

"I only had one son." Andrew said. The larger of the two laughed.

"Can't you count?" He laughed. "I mean, sure, it's almost legendary how joined at the hip the two of them are. We all know that you don't pick on wittle Sammy Winchester or big bwother Dean will swoop down and beat you all to hell. But surly you can tell your sons apart, surely you can tell that there are in fact two of them. You were there when they were conceived weren't you?" Andrew didn't respond, he was angry, and he was desperately trying to keep his emotions, and his voice in check. The tall man smiled. "You were there weren't you…when BOTH of your sons were conceived? Or is there a reason that Dean doesn't share the Winchester height?"

"They aren't my sons. I only had one son, and he died." Andrew said, sensing that it was probably in his best interest not to mention that Sam and Dean were his grandsons.

"Your sonS are very much alive John." Interrogator man said emphasizing the s.

"I'm not John."

"Carl, you believe him?" the taller asked his companion sarcastically, and then moved towards Andrew.

"No, Alan I don't believe him." Carl's weaker voice croaked from the other side of the room.

The tall man, Alan, got mere inches from Andrew's face. He leaned over and Andrew could feel his breath on his face, Andrew looked the man dead in the eyes, refusing to look away, refusing to allow the taller, younger man to dominate him. Alan's face turned darker when he realized that he wasn't going to win this particular bout of dominance plan. "I think, John Winchester, you've been playing dead for five years, laying low, letting your boys take all of the credit for your transgressions, hell, I think you let your boys do what they did to the world. Encouraged it even. I know the truth. I ain't gonna be fooled by this get up." He gestured to Andrew's body.

"What are you talking about?" Andrew asked frustrated.

"How did you do it John?"

"I'm not John." Andrew said louder despite the headache that was forming behind his eyes.

"You keep saying that like I'm going to believe it."

"I'm going to keep saying it until you get it through your thick skull." Andrew corrected.

Alan stood straight, walked to a table just out of Andrew's eye shot and returned moments later with a frightening looking device. "Oh, John, we have ways to make you talk."

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

The entire bar had watched the two men take Andrew out of the bar and none had lifted a finger to help the elderly man. Clive tried to get up and go for Andrew but a beefy hand stopped him. "I don't suggest you get up. They have a legitimate beef with your friend there."

"They're going to hurt him."

"Them Winchesters deserve a little hurt to come their way." The man keeping him from getting up said in a deep baritone.

"He hasn't done anything to anyone." Clive yelled.

"Sins of the sons are the sins of the father." Clive sensed the danger that loomed all around the man and he wisely stopped trying to get up. The beefy man waited a few more minutes and then moved away from Clive and back to his own seat. Clive stood seconds later and was headed to the door when he saw his friend's cell phone. He looked around to see if anyone else in the bar saw it, and when he decided that they hadn't he swiftly picked it up and headed out of the door.

He paged through his friend's contacts once he was inside of his own car, and found his grandson's number.

He called.

He waited.

It rang.

It went to voice mail.

Clive cursed.

Clive left a message.

Clive turned on a car and broke every single stereotype that involved old men and cars and booked it out of the bar, hoping to find a way to save his friend.


	26. Chapter 26

AN: i'm SO TERRIBLY SORRY for not posting for so long. Work has kept me busier than needed :). I will get this one done before my vacation is up. So here is part 1 of the end. Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Dean sat at Bobby's kitchen table scouring the lore on latest baddie while Sam worked hunched over the computer.<p>

Dean's phone rang for the fourth time in two hours and like the last three, Dean simply looked at the screen and hit ignore and went back to flipping pages. Sam sighed and stretched out his aching back.

"Answer it Dean."

"No." Dean said and took a pull from the beer by his hand.

"Why not?"

"I don't know who it is."

"When has that ever stopped you before?" Sam asked exasperated. He took the phone from his brother and started scanning the phone log.

"Hey! I don't look through your phone."

Sam ignored him. "This number has left you four voice mails Dean."

"I listened to one."

"So you lied?" Sam accused.

"I just didn't want you all over me about it."

"Who is it?"

"One of Andrew's friends."

"What does he want?"

"I don't know. I only listened long enough to figure out who it was. He probably wants us to life the ban on seeing us or him or whatever, but just like Andrew, this dude doesn't know what he's asking for."

"Dean…"

"Oh come on Sam. We made this decision together. We decided that it was best that Andrew not contact us we don't want all of the things out there that want our heads on platters to be after him now do we?"

"But, if this guy has called four times now, don't you think it might be something a little more than just wanting us to lift the ban on time spent?"

"Don't know, and I don't care." Dean said and went back to looking through the book.

"That's bull shit and you know it." Sam said with a shake of his head and punched the numbers into the phone that unlocked Dean's voice mail.

"Oh that's just not right. You're breaking into my phone. Can't a man have any privacy."

"As long as the password continues to be a variation on the spelling of Winchester, no, you may not have any privacy." Dean grumbled a little and went back to reading and didn't' notice the pallid look on Sam's face after listening to the messages.

"Dean."

"What?" he asked grumpily.

"Andrew's been kidnapped…."

"What?" he asked again this time picking his feet up off of the table, letting the chair rock back down on all four legs, and giving his brother an incredulous look.

"Some guy named Clive, apparently one of Andrew's friends, was with him when some big dudes came and took him away. He is hoping for our help, because we are the only family he has left."

"Damnit!" Dean cursed.

"What's going on?" Bobby asked as he came inside wiping his hands on a rag. "You figure out what you're hunting?"

"No. Andrew was kidnapped."

"He's a grown man." Bobby stated somewhat confused.

"Yeah, a grown man that is a Winchester, a Winchester that the monster community didn't know existed before he walked into our lives." Dean muttered and grabbed the cell phone that Sam had just put down. Dean went into the call log and dialed the number that apparently went to Andrew's friend Cive.

"Hello?" A frantic sounding man answered.

"This Clive?"

"This Dean Winchester?"

"Yes." Dean answered.

"Sure took you long enough to pick up."

Dean ignored him. "Where are you?"

"I'm looking for your grandfather."

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, he hated dealing with civilians anymore. "Give me a state, a city, something I can use dude."

"Tennessee."

"Did you see him get taken?"

"Yes."

"Where were you?" Dean snapped. He felt as if he was trying to put this man's teeth out of his head with sticky tape.

"We were at this bar, Mendles, and…"

"Wait, did you say Mendles?" Sam and Bobby both perked up at the name of the bar.

"Yeah, why?" Dean closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.

"The bar has a reputation." Dean hedged. Dean continued to question Clive, continued to get information out of the elderly man as he motioned for Sam to pack his crap. He ended the conversation with a place to meet up with Clive. Dean then threw his phone across the table, pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Hunters have him." Dean said softly and pounded the palm of his hand on the table. "Damnit! I knew he had no business going with us on a hunt! He should never have looked for us. Should never have contacted us!

"Dean, he didn't know the bar was a hunter hang out." Sam said.

Dean gave his brother an evil glare. Sam stopped talking and Bobby sighed. "You need me on the phones or should I come with you?"

Dean thought for a moment and said, "I think I need you to come along. Maybe these hunters know you and you can talk some sense into them."

Bobby gave a rueful smile and said, "Yeah, right, like any hunter can have sense talked into him. That's just plain fantasy."

SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSN

The diner they had made plans to meet Clive at was nothing to scream at. It was a hole in the wall, much like most of the places they normally frequented, however, this one seemed to have the kindest waitresses and the best apple pie short of homemade, and that made it a semi-frequent (as frequent as two men with demons, angels, and whatever on their ass, could) rest stop on their drives through Tennessee.

Clive stood up when he saw the Winchesters and Dean smiled at the waitress who was headed towards them to seat them and she nodded and grabbed three menus and headed towards Clive's table.

Clive looked at the three men before him and finally asked, "Which one of you is Dean Winchester?"

"That would be me." Dean low voice rumbled. Clive stuck his hand out and Dean paused, confused for a moment, and then shook the man's hand. It had been a long time since someone he had come to meet had wanted to exchange pleasantries before cussing him out. Clive introduced himself to Sam and Bobby and shook their hands as well, and the four of them sat down at the table.

"You guys got here quick."

Dean ignored the comment and looked Clive straight into his bespeckled eyes. "What can you tell us about the men that took Andrew?"

"Not a whole lot I'm afraid." Clive fiddled with the fork beside his water glass and said. "There were two of them. Both about middle age, one was tall and skinny the other one was maybe an inch taller than him but much thicker, stocky. The stockier of the two was the one who took Andrew. I stood to go and help him and the man at the table next to me stopped me and said that you Winchesters have it coming to you, and that I shouldn't interfere."

"That's true. You shouldn't interfere. You don't want these people to know you exist." Sam said softly.

"What kinds of things are you boys mixed up in?" Clive asked softly.

"Things that your worst nightmares would want to run away from." Dean replied.

"You find out what direction they went in?" Bobby asked.

"No. No one let me out of the bar until they were sure that I wouldn't be able to find out that kind of information."

"Okay." Dean said with a sigh. "Thanks Clive." Dean stood to leave, Sam and Bobby following suit.

"Wait!" Clive said and got to his own feet.

"Aren't we going to call the police?"

"No. This isn't business that the police can tackle." Dean said.

"I want to help." Clive said.

"No." Sam said gently. "No. You stay here, man the phone. We'll call you the moment we find him." Dean noted that Sam had turned on the patented Sammy Winchester puppy dog eyes, and he had to fight not to smile. Even in the midst of this, this, debacle, seeing Sam being Sammy filled Dean with a joy he hadn't felt in ages.

Clive, like every normal human being, succumbed to the puppy gaze and nodded. "You promise you'll call me as soon as you find him?" Clive asked.

"I promise." Sam affirmed and gave a tender smile.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

The first step in finding the man was to go to the bar. Dean gave some well punctuated threats, while Sam played good cop and tried to charm information out of them. However neither tactic worked. It was Bobby who was the one to get information out of the bartender. Turned out that he owed Bobby a favor.

"Nelson and Spencer took him."

"What the hell could Nelson and Spencer want with an old man?" Bobby asked confused.

"You sure it's an old man Bobby?" The bartender asked as he cleaned the wood bar.

"Yeah. I am. Man's been at my place a couple of times. No way can he get through my tests if he weren't what he says he is."

"No, I'm not implying that he might not be a man. I'm asking you if you really think he's the boy's grandfather and not their father."

"Our dad is dead." Dean said definitively and with heat.

"Trust me, John Winchester is very much gone. I helped the boys salt and burn his body."

"You of all people should know that death means nothing when your last name is Winchester."


	27. Chapter 27

It took a lot of threats, and ultimately a lot of money to get other hunters to finally point Sam and Dean in the direction of Nelson and Spencer.

Sam and Dean got into the car and slammed their door simultaneously, and Dean steamed as he started the car and took off like a demon out of hell down the blacktop.

"Why does everyone think this whole mess was OUR fault!" Dean finally asked heatedly as Sam gripped the side of the passenger's seat praying that his brother would lay off of the gas.

"Because it was our fault." Sam said strained. He didn't like to admit that the whole apocalypse thing was their fault, but it was, as much as the demons, the angels, Ruby, Cass and anything else that supernatural manipulated and forced their hands, ultimately the decisions the two of them made, on their own free will, forced the apocalypse.

Dean was silent for a minute. The car was pushed to go just a little bit faster and Dean, whose knuckles were white on the steering wheel, "It wasn't like we meant to." Dean finally said.

"That's for damn sure." Sam sighed as his mind weighed his part in the mess/

"Andrew shouldn't be paying for this." Dean added.

"Agreed. Did you understand what in the world they were talking about…you know about whether or not he was really an old man?"

Dean shrugged. "Guess they think that he's really dad."

"Dad's gone."

"We know that." Dean smirked a little. "But I think the hunting community has seen us come back to life so many times now that they might be thinking that there is something supernatural keeping the family from dying, and they might thing that applies to dad as well."

"This is true." Sam bit his lower lip. "You think he's okay?"

"No." Dean said honestly. "I think they want him to admit to being Dad…and Spencer isn't exactly known for his subtle ways."

SNSNSNSNSNSN

Andrew was hanging by his arms in the center of the cavernous space the two men had taken him to. His shoulders ached and he couldn't feel his fingers any longer. But at least they had stopped cutting him with the knives. At least they had ceased rubbing salt and ash and other materials into the wounds left by the knives, and he was glad that they had finally stopped taking out their frustrations on his face in punches and slaps.

"You are a tough son of a bitch John Winchester." Alan whispered.

"I'm not John." Andrew's voice broke.

"You keep telling us that and I still don't believe you."

"Why would I lie?" Andrew whispered, unable to get his voice any stronger.

"To protect those self-centered pricks that you call sons."

"I'm not lying." Andrew repeated before he passed out.

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

Sam and Dean found the place, pulled in and didn't wait for Bobby to come as back up. And Dean did exactly what he always wanted to do but Sam usually talked him out of, he just went in there guns blazing and half cocked.

When Dean saw Andrew strung up from the ceiling and unconscious, he let out a cry that heaven could hear and went after Alan Spencer and Carl Nelson. The battle was a bloody one, knives were pulled, guns went off, and punches were issued that broke bone, and dislocated jaws, and emptied mouths of teeth.

Bobby put a hand on Dean's back, stopping him from the pounding he was giving Alan. Alan breathed hard, opened his eyes as far as they would go, and said, "I knew you would come."

"You have our grandfather."

Alan let out a choked laugh that ended in a cough. "Whatever you want to believe Dean Winchester. It should be you in those cuffs, hanging from your arms. It should be you." He hissed.

"Yes." Dean answered shortly. "It should."

"Told not to come after the Winchesters directly…said you had too much power."

"Who told you we had ANY power?" Dean asked eyes virtually glowing with anger. "Told that you had Angels and Demons watching over you." Alan coughed again and spat blood out to the side.

At the mention of angels Dean's blood boiled and it took all he had not to raise his fist and punch the critically injured man in the face once more, just for emphasis. Castiel was the one who destroyed his brother's wall, left him just on the edge of sanity all of the time, and just the sheer mention of the winged dicks made Dean seek out an outlet for his violence.

"Nothing watches over us but each other. You tell that to the other hunters who are after us. And you remember, if you ever touch another hair on the head of anyone who I consider family again, I'll finish this job." Dean, breathing heavy from exertion, removed himself from the pummeled man, and staggered to his brother who had had the easier task of taking out Carl, and offered his brother a hand up. Sam took it, and the two of them went, together, to their grandfather who was on the floor, Bobby holding him upright, and knelt down next to them.

"Andrew?" Sam asked quietly. "Andrew?" Andrew's eyes opened a crack. "We're going to take you to the hospital." Sam said gently. "You just go back to sleep. It'll make the pain easier to manage. We've got you. You're safe."

SNSNSNSNSNSNSN

They came to visit him at the hospital a week later, neither sure if they would be welcome, because after all it was their fault, no matter how inadvertently, that he was in the state he was in.

Dean poked his face into the room. "Andrew?" He asked and pushed the door open a little further.

"Sam. Dean. Come on in." He said and tried to sit up and get more comfortable."

"No, no, just stay where you are." Sam said and reached a hand out to stop the older man's movements.

"We only came by for a minute. Just wanted to see how you were doing." Dean said.

"I'm doing better. Doc says I should be out of here by Monday." Sam smiled as his still bruised face would allow.

"We're sorry about this." Sam said.

"What?" Andrew asked.

"We're sorry that you got caught up in our drama." Sam clarified.

"That's why we didn't want you anywhere near us or our lives." Dean said. "We weren't trying to be dicks. We just…wanted to protect you from stuff like this."

"This is our reality, not yours." Sam added.

Andrew paused a moment at the two contrite Winchesters. "I'm just as much to blame."

"Yeah." Dean started. Sam kicked him and Dean glared at his brother. Andrew kept the smile off of his face.

"We just came to say we were sorry." Sam finally said. "Glad you're better." Sam touched Dean's shoulder. "Come on Dean, time to go."

"When will I see you boys again?" I asked.

"Never." Dean said finally after a few moments silence. "We're making it look like you died to the hunting community. We can't risk this happening again."

"I don't get a say in what I do?"

"No. Sam said. "This is the end of the line. I'm glad I got to meet you." Sam said. "But we can't risk your life again. Pretend like we don't exist." Dean nodded, and without another word the boys were gone. Andrew, the stubborn old fool, found himself fighting tears…the last connection to his son, to his family, just walked out of the door.

SNSNSNSNSSN

"Is it done?" Bobby asked when they got to the lobby of the hospital. "It's done. Let's get out of here." Dean said briskly. He never turned his face to his brother or surrogate father. He wanted to get the hell out of there, to forget just how much Andrew looked like his father, sounded like his father. For all of his unwillingness to spend time with him, for all of his anger, and frustration he had towards the man, he was family, and this was the first time Dean had ever abandoned anyone in his family before, and he realized that it was just as hard as being abandoned. He got in the car and slammed the door.

Sam followed his brother. He fastened the indifferent facade to his face and tried to forget just how much he had wanted to get to know Andrew, to learn things about their father, things about his childhood about his teen years, things that only a father would know about his son. Walking away from Andrew meant walking away meant walking away from the last piece of his father and that left. And whatever others may think they knew about Sam Winchester, he didn't hate their father, he had been angry all of those years ago, and he missed his father, and leaving now made him feel as if whatever piece f John Winchester was left died. It was more painful than Sam could have imagined. He got in the car and slammed the door.

They took off, neither speaking, neither paying attention to each other. Both trying to lose themselves in the sound of tires eating up pavement and the blaring of the radio.

The END


End file.
